Trials Made for a Hero
by UxysRaze
Summary: Falling into Tartarus to gain the power he needed to face Gaea and her giants was not going to be easy, however, even he was not prepared to take on Thanatos's Trials, they were meant only for the greatest of heroes yet the mightiest and wisest all failed. They were said to be impossible by fate. Facing Thanatos and his trials Percy must now overcome his most daunting foe. Death.
1. Taking a Fall!

As Percy held on to Annabeth with all his remaining physical strength he knew he couldn't let her fall to _Tartarus._ Even as strained as he was he recalled that someone needed to close the Doors of Death from the inside as well as from the outside. Looking up from the ledge he was barely holding onto he saw Nico and looked back down to Annabeth knowing he wouldn't be able to hold for much longer so he made his decision. "I swear on the **Styx** I'll find you again Wisegirl." With the loud thunder far above signaling his oath was made, he began to concentrate on the water molecules in the air under Annabeth trying to ignore her protest shouting at him to let her go.

He looked back at Nico before pushing his powers like never before and with a weak voice he said, "Nico...meet me at the other side...of the of the doors," as Nico opened his mouth to protest Percy cut him off "please... just lead them all there...you are the only one who can.." Finally, he found the last ounce of strength he had needed, before blacking out he created water out of the air itself under Annabeth cutting the web that had attached her leg to the monster down below and pushed Annabeth 20 feet above the ledge she was previously holding onto, sent crashing into an unsuspecting Nico. When they got up from their little fall they looked over the edge frantically with heavy hearts praying to all the gods that they could get Percy to safety. What they say however was a barely conscious Percy smiling at the sight of Annabeth, however, wet she was, now away from danger as he fell a second too soon and an inch out of Nico's desperate attempt to hold on to Percy's now falling hand with surprising tears in his eyes.

The last thing Percy could remember was hearing Annabeth's voice breaking on his old nickname and sobbing out, "I love you seaweed brain... please just come back to us, to me." Everything faded to black for the Hero of Olympus.

Just as his unconscious body was disappearing from sight Annabeth shouted, "I swear on the **Styx** I'll find a way to get you out somehow...I don't care how." As her voice broke at the end both her and Nico collapsed onto the barely stable floor with her in tears and Nico laying on his back staring into the sky remembering his time in _Tartarus_ and how the only reason he just barely survived the pit was because of Gaea wanting to capture him to for a trap against the crew. He wanted to believe with Percy's annoying track record for doing the impossible time and time again that he could survive on his own...with just a sword and a pocketful of ambrosia. As Nico contemplated going into the pit to try to and join Percy he remembered Percy telling him to lead everyone to the other side of the doors. Determined not to let him down he got up and held his hand out for Annabeth.

She blankly looked at it for a second before looking up with teary eyes to meet his gaze "We both have promises to keep remember? We can't let him down like this, let's go." Even with her teary eyes, you could see her head processing his words and nodded grabbing his outstretched hand just as both Jason and a now human Frank landed behind them running to the edge of Tartarus, but they were too plopped himself down with shame and guilt thinking about how seemingly useless and late he was to save him. Frank ran a hand over his face in an attempt to to stop the tears that were already coming due to losing one of the first people who believed in him and trusted him to the point of fighting off hundreds of undead ghosts on a glacier just so he and Hazel could take Alcyoneus out of Alaska and kill him. Like seriously what type of guy volunteers to take on hundreds of undead Roman spirits by himself! "Oh, gods... " he thought to himself "Hazel is going to be so devastated."

Frank finally noticed Annabeth with more tears and determination in her eyes that he has ever seen before and it was somewhat terrifying. She then spoke in a broken voice that was just above a whisper saying, "we can't waste more time here...the sooner we go the sooner we can get Percy out of there." The final part of her statement seemed to bring them out of their moping state because they all wiped the tears off of their face. Jason trying to take control of the bad situation said, "C'mon guys the floor is unstable it would be best to get back up to the ship." Everyone nodded and so Jason ended up taking Nico on top of the deck of the Argo II with him cursing Jason the whole way. Jason tried tuning them out but he unfortunately heard some of the very unpleasant and colorful words being said about him with the strangest one of them being "I've never hated seeing a flying dumbass blonde Superman in my life more than now," as well as his last one "So help me gods if you don't let go I'll give you to Alecto for her to use in her fuckin sex dunge- Ah what the hell Grace!?" Jason just sheepishly smiled at him and muttered, "you told me to let go...and we were just over the deck sooo...you know?" Nico who was now looking very green compared to his normally pale skin color curtly replied, "I'll be on the mast you flying loving prick." Jason couldn't help the small smile on his face from hearing the small Nico cursing.

His smile soon melted when he saw Piper looking at him with concern written all over her face. All Jason could do is look towards the edge of the cliff with regretful eyes and slowly shake his head. Immediately Piper flew into Jason's chest muttering "oh gods... had he not done enough..." If you were to look at the remaining crew of the ship from an outsiders perspective you would be wondering what happened to everyone. You would see Jason holding his girlfriend Piper tightly under the mast of the flying war-ship, both of them seemed to be unaware of the other as they were both lost in thought. Up above on the mast, Nico was sitting down trying to suppress the memories of his time in Tartarus to no avail hoping to all gods Percy could make it. Suddenly an idea hit him and he made an Iris message to call an old friend even if it was completely selfish to do, he had to it. "For him," he thought to himself.

Going towards where Leo was in control of the steering wheel for the Argo II were Leo, Hazel, and a very upset Frank. They were only now being told of what had happened to the beloved son of Poseidon while they were busy securing the Athena Parthenos. As Frank told both his girlfriend and his crewmate they both seemed to be deflating by the word which would have been funny to see under different circumstances from the fire-wielding son of Hephaestus because of his naturally cheerful and joking attitude as well as the bubbly daughter of Pluto who rarely was seen not smiling when not fighting. Leo felt dread grip his heart as he remembered the goddess of vengeance, Nemesis, telling him how opening the fortune cookie would come at a great cost. Now with tears in his eyes, he set the ship to stay afloat over the ruined remains of Arachne's cavern and let himself fall to his knees muttering things about it being his fault and not to stupidly accept something from a goddess of revenge ever again.

Next to him, Hazel was just as in bad condition crying over one of the few people who didn't immediately criticize her for her being alive when she should have been dead. Frank tried approaching her but she was too far into her own thoughts to hear him trying to reassure her that he would get out so he just sank down with her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder and another around Leo knowing all of them need some time to come to grasp with the situation.

The last member of the crew on board, not including a monster-blood-thirsty-half-goat-half-man cursing enough profanities to make a sailor blush out of pent-up anger, was Annabeth, the daughter of Athena, located at the bow of the ship. She decided she needed to step away thinking about how plain stupid it was to not check and see if she still had Arachne's strings attached to herself. "I could have stopped this if I wasn't crying over a stupid ankle that was already healing," she dejectedly thought to herself.

Lost in her thoughts she didn't notice Festus putting his head on Annabeth's lap making her jump but instantly relax seeing it was only Festus. Even if he was an automation Annabeth stroked the head of the dragon. Looking at the sky she tried to think of anything about Tartarus and things Percy could use to survive only to no avail. Frustrated she closed her eyes not wanting to let go of Festus needing some type of comfort. Apart from Percy surviving alone in a place made to keep the worst of monsters and immortals in with a handful of ambrosia and his sword Riptide miraculously she knew of only one way to let him live. Unfortunately, it would require Gaea. She knew Percy and the other crew members would never agree to work with the primordial goddess, but she was desperate enough to to get him out of there in any way she could manage.

With that final thought in mind she got up, gently moving Festus' head away she decided enough was enough. "Everyone listen for a moment." She paused to ensure she had everyone's attention. "We have spent too long doing nothing here but mope...I want to get him back here more than anyone so let's get moving from here at once," despite the week and breaking voice everyone got moving and soon they took off with Nico telling Leo where they would be going to. Everyone decided that Leo, Jason, and Piper would be taking watch first since Hazel, Frank, and Annabeth were nearly falling over from exhaustion as well as Nico who still needed all the rest and food he could get. Before going into her room Annabeth looked at the sky and prayed to the fates that Percy could survive long enough for her to go through with her half-baked plan.

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Opening his eyes Percy questioned why everything was so dark, quickly however he recalled himself falling into the pit. He didn't regret letting himself fall for her, not one bit. Now however even Percy knew that a fall of this type would kill him. He didn't even know how long he had passed out, to begin with.

Closing his eyes to see how much strength he had he realized he had close to none left. With little options for surviving a fall at maximum velocity he only thought about how he could eat the ambrosia that he had in his pocket to create water from the air under him, the problem with that was he was going to fast to concentrate on creating water. "Guess I'll have to hope there's a water a body there..." as his voice trailed off he realized it seemed to be harder to breathe.

Opening his eyes he was blinded by the sudden light seeing only red for a solid minute until his eyes adjusted. When they did he wished they didn't because falling from where he was it was like looking at a picture of Earth from the moon. The reality of his situation seemed to finally hit him due to the size what was going to be his new version of hell. He saw jagged mountains that could rival Mount Everest and cliffs that would have sudden drops with appeared to be piles of gold dust on the bottom.

Just as he was getting more and more dejected on his hopes of survival, luck appeared to have been on his side because as he got closer to the land he saw five rivers flowing throughout all of what he could see. Unfortunately for the son of Poseidon, he wasn't close enough to land in one of them safely. "So much for saving the ambrosia," he thought to himself. Cursing the fates he ate the ambrosia in an attempt to try and somehow get to one of the rivers. At first, he tried to create water from the air and ride it down but that didn't work whatsoever, so he tried to make a parachute of as little water he could create, but that was a waste of energy as it evaporated immediately from the winds that were created from falling so fast.

Panicking now Percy of course thought of something that was just so stupid it might work. He ended up pulling the water from his own body painfully and solidifying it immediately not wanting to waste any of his own water supply as he could already feel the strain it put on his body from just a second of getting it out of his system. What he made from the water was a simple rectangle with water-like strings coming from each corner for him to hold on to. He could only hold on to the strings because of his powers over water.

His contraption slightly slowed his dissent, however, it was far to fast to land by any means but what he wanted was a way of moving in the air and his new contraption did the trick. He willed it to take him in the direction of the nearest river he could see which happened to be a grey and likely disgusting excuse for a river. As he willed his water parachute his eyes widened at how he somehow managed to go into the middle of the river which now seemed like a little ocean of its own.

Not wanting to be anymore depleted before experiencing the disgusting water he willed the water to splash on his face to make up for the missing strength he just used. As he fell into the water, disgusting as it was, he expected to feel completely re-energized and he did, but at the same time, he felt himself growing weak. Not physically weak but mentally weak. As he wondered why he realized that he was hearing voices. He managed to gasp out "Di Immortales...this is the river of the Cocytus!.."

He was still hearing the voices an indefinite amount of time later when he actually understood what one of them amongst the other thousands of voices said he realized it was whispering into his ear "Join all those friends you let down. Beg for their forgiveness. Just give _innnnn to us join us,_ " at the last words the voice seemed to be hissing the word out. However, for the river or voices him hearing that voice seemed to only rejuvenate him with steely determination because Percy **knew** they all had died as heroes and wouldn't want him to mope over something fate had already declared to happen.

Opening his eyes he never knew he closed he saw that he was sinking into the river and there was no bottom in sight even to his own underwater vision. Son of Poseidon or not he was struggling to breathe so he willed the currents of water that were previously not moving before to propel him up to the surface. Strangely enough in that one second it took him to shoot up he heard what sounded like people sobbing and screaming at the same time next to him but when he surfaced they all stopped.

Looking around for something that wasn't a red...was that a sky or just the natural walls above him? "Questions for another time," he mumbled. Finally, he saw what would have to be the equivalent of a shore down here and was not so surprised to see several expensive looking cars on the shore. Deciding he had no other choice than to go into the direction of where he imagined Arachne to have landed he willed the waters to shoot him into the crashed remains of cars.

Thinking about Arachne he gritted his teeth together thinking about killing the monster for nearly dragging both Annabeth and himself down here. "I better be able to kill monsters down here." Saying it out loud he realized his voice was hoarse. Suddenly his grim face broke into a grin laughing out, "hah hoarse like a horse," shortly after realizing he was laughing and had stopped he only got annoyed that the river still managed to affect him. He decided that he might as well get a drink as he stopped. So he did. And he spit it all back out wondering how it could possibly taste just like gasoline (his knowledge of the taste was a long story that he could never be able to explain properly without being seeing as a complete fool).

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Getting to the shore was more tedious than he possibly thought. Mixed with his random hysterical laughing and stopping from the need to drink because of being so ironically dehydrated, it took him what he thought was at least three solid boring hours. When he reached the shore he was immediately on edge because he saw what he thought to have of been...a webbed set of Chinese handcuffs."What the hades is that" he thought to himself.

Already feeling tense, his built-in instincts kicked in yelling at him to dodge to the side. With surprising speed for someone of his poor condition, he rolled to his right. He was lucky he did because just where he was standing lied the body of a hideous monster he assumed to be Arachne. Her lower body half was that of a giant eight-legged spider. The spider-like qualities went all the way up to where breast of a woman would be had. She, "or it," Percy mentally added, had human-like shoulders with normal human arms coming down to meet her spider body which her spider legs alone towered far over him. Going down her arms all the way to her knuckles they were normal arms, however, when you looked at her "fingers" you would see that they were entirely claws with dried ichor on the tips of them. Her face was a mix of spider-like features with the shape of a human face, her eyes were completely spider-like in style and her mouth seemed to be protruding a green foam like substance which he could only guess was acid or poison. She had long black silky hair that went down to her spider torso. "She gives the minotaur a run for his money when it comes to hideous monsters," Percy thought to himself only to shake his head.

Not wasting time to let his thoughts carry on anymore, he swiped at the front two spider legs on the right side of her body with seemingly unheard of speed for even a veteran demigod. He subconsciously realized two things. One he was controlling the ichor in her body to restrict her movements, not stopping them but slowing her down immensely. And two, he was controlling the water in the air to both propel him forward and to give him a temporary boost. Screeching out in pain the bleeding monster desperately tried clawing at Percy who was not expecting that and rolled under her clumsy attempt just in time. After dodging her sloppy strikes for several minutes she seemed to have gotten to exhausted because as he was staring down at the monster who brought him down here she didn't try to claw at his face. Now glaring at the monster below him he darkly questioned it, "answer me this spider-monster and I'll be quick with you. Do monsters actually die down here?" Her only response was to hiss acid at him, he however merely gave her tight smile after stepping back.

"Finding out the hard way doesn't seem like a problem to me I suppose," with that he began to fully control the ichor in her lower half and twist it with deliberate care for it to be slow. When he finished breaking her lower half, he decided he definitely didn't like the torturing route as her screams were now intertwining with the whispers and sobs of the Cocytus a mile or so back, so he stabbed into her head to finish her off and was content when she turned into a pile of gold and stayed that way.

Walking back to the shore of the river to get to the water because he was feeling weak due to the growing blisters on his body, he was surprised to see a giant 12-foot man that was radiating an ancient type of power he rarely ever felt. Dread crept up on the veteran demigod when he realized it was the same type of aura only titans would give off. The titan wore a simple battered red cape with no shirt to cover his muscled chest that had scars littered all across his body combined with armored shorts that would only have of been acceptable in a battle-field to coach hedge, combined with celestial bronze knee lengthed shin pads. That's when Percy realized the titan was wearing the same outfit as Leonidas from the 300 movie he saw a long time ago. Confused as ever he saw that the titan definitely had the same facial features as Leonidas.

Noticing the demigods confused expression the titan smiled slightly which surprised Percy who had expected a typical "surrender or else" threat. " _I can tell you know I am a Titan little godling_ ," hearing the power behind the amused tone Percy snapped out of his stupor and uncapped riptide pointing it warningly at the titan's unwavering face who now looked disappointed. The ancient being sighed and said, "I heard rumors that you completely relied on the Athena spawn for information on your adversaries, I now realize how terribly accurate they were." He momentarily pretended to think and suddenly he beamed exclaiming,"I'll give you a hint as to who I am. My wife is the naiad/goddess of the river Styx." Rising an eyebrow at the demigod who hadn't responded he asked, "I have also heard that you managed to swim in my beloved's river. So how are you alive without the so-called "Achilles Curse?" It was my understanding you could only lose it by dying...or going somewhere you don't belong."

Percy, however, had stopped listening after hearing the word "Styx" and soon paled upon realizing who exactly he was now facing."Pallas," he said somewhat shakily knowing he would never be able to take a titan like him on in open combat in such poor state, "Titan of battle and Warcraft. One of the fiercest and most loyal of all fighters to Kronos during The Golden Age." Said titan smiled at the demigod as his eyes began to glow with power and in a suddenly deep and powerful voice he boomed out loud, " **Hello Perseus Jackson, the so-called bane of titans, let us get to business shall we**?"


	2. Percy's First Titan in Hell!

RedAce16: Thank you! For the most part, Percy's time in Tartarus will be in the same areas as in the book and in the same order. However, the beings he faces will be different and tougher as well as his encounter with Nyx. I won't go into detail because that'll just spoil it but I will say Pallas won't be the only titan he sees. Hope you enjoy!

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As Percy got into his stance ready to defend himself at a moments notice, he couldn't deny that the Titans slightly deranged grin combined with the raw power said titan was radiating solely towards him was completely unnerving. To make matters worse Percy, who was already weak compared to the titan due to his power usage against Arachne, almost stumbled back from the aura alone. Somehow the grin on Pallas' face got wider seeing the demigod still standing when a minor god in his position would be falling over themselves. "I'm impressed with both your strength and willingness to face a Titan, however, you wouldn't be able to even scratch me with your low strength reserve." At Percy's questioning looks he replied, "oh don't give me that look. You said it yourself I'm the titan of battle, I can feel your weakness," he mused more to himself "In fact, using so much power in such short amount of time should have killed any normal demigod...such power at top condition would truly be monstrous to face aga-."

His statement was cut short when his eyes widened in surprise looking at the demigod he presumed to have been dead on his feet that was over 30 feet beforehand was now slashing at his throat. Only his instincts and veteran experience to listen to those instincts allowed Pallas to jump backward and only receive a minor cut on his jaw. Narrowing his eyes at the son of Poseidon with a lot more caution now, he pulled a spear for his left hand and round shield for his right hand out of thin air. Percy mentally cursed himself for underestimating the second generation Titan, he grabbed Riptide with two hands now already knowing first hand how powerful an immortals blows were to receive. Being in such close proximity to the titan of warfare, he fully felt the power he had. While it was still more than the average foe he faced, Pallas was still considerably weaker than the six first-generation Titans he had fought like Hyperion or Iapetus. If he had anyone else to assist him or if he wasn't so weak at the moment this fight would be simple, not necessarily easy but it would for sure be won in his favor.

He was brought out of his when the Titan gave a low chuckle and said, "you know I was told by my lady to not kill you..." his voice trailed off as his eyes glazed over for a split second but quickly returned to normal as well as a feral grin on his face. "However for you demigod, I want to see the power you have and my lady agrees, so **show me your strength mortal!"** His voice started somewhat normal with only a slight sadistic tone but soon ended with a loud roar of power coming from the voice of the titan. Pallas had done unexpected opening move by slashing his shield as if it was a sword which caught Percy off guard causing him to get hit on his left shoulder and stumble to his right onto the floor only to have to roll further right to avoid a stab aimed for his heart. As Percy got up he frantically shouted, "your lady problems are so not on me! Just buy her roses for god's sake!"

"You dare mock my lady as a shallow commoner!?" Pallas yelled out in outrage. Percy's eyes narrowed the more he had to spin aside and roll to avoid a barrage of lethal attacks. Realizing he wasn't going to outlast a titan of battle Percy decided his only way of winning this encounter was by taking the offense. So he took a risk. The next time he found the opportunity to do what he wanted was several minutes later, by then he was feeling quite spent so he had to finish this quick or he would fall. When Pallas went in to stab at the heart of the demigod hoping to break through his defense only to be surprised by the demigod using a water-coated left hand to grab the point of his spear and proceed to attack him with a ferociousness he hadn't seen since during the war between the gods and Titans. Now with only a shield to defend himself since he had to let go of his spear or lose his left arm he backed up trying to concentrate on creating a new spear for him to use only to be pushed back even more by strikes coming for his legs, head, and even heart all in a matter of seconds. Pallas was now a whole lot more concerned about his health than before.

However, the titan could feel the sword pounding into his shield begin to become weaker and slower with every thrust slash and stab. With a roar, Pallas pretended to pull his shield back for a swing on the demigod. Seeing that the demigod feel for the feint and attempted full swing on the opposite side of where the shield was supposed to be rearing back, Pallas quickly redirected his shield and took the full hit of the sword which made the demigod go off balance. Taking advantage of the demigods lack of balance he slammed his shield into Percy's chest which sent the demigod flying back 15 feet. Being on his back on the floor now he could feel his weakness now that he didn't have the full effect of adrenaline pumping in his system. "Gods how was I just fighting a second ago..." he groaned out. Percy now had cuts and slashes his left arm and even several on his face. The worst of his injuries wasn't even the huge bruise on his chest from the taking the shield full on, but from the blisters that were forming all over his body. "Right... Tartarus the place made to slowly kill you huh," he thought to himself.

Before he could attempt to rise, Pallas was above him with a spear in hand and shield on his back sporting several deep gashes on his chest and left arm. "I'm impressed by your resilience but you were neve-" he was cut off by hiss escaping his lips and him dropping to his knees when the demigod kicked him straight where Apollo doesn't shine hard enough to hear bones crack. "I always get told I talk too much yet here _you_ are. Talking more than me," Percy muttered. As Percy got up he pulled out Riptide, which he dropped on his little flight via shield from his pocket and uncapped it. Stumbling over to the titan who was trying to recuperate from the literal low blow he kicked the shield away and swatted a weak stab from Pallas away. Percy now thinking all he had to do was put the edge of Riptide to Pallas' throat and finish him, put the sword to his throat only to feel a burning sensation and gasp in shock.

Percy barely jumped back and looked away from the titan before Pallas took his divine form and he turned to ashes. "I didn't even know Titans had divine forms!" Percy thought to himself. When Percy didn't feel the warm feeling on his skin anymore he slowly turned to look at where he had the titan a moment short of his defeat only to meet the gaze of a very pissed of and a now in perfect condition Pallas. He sheepishly smiled and said, "If I said I was sorry how believable would it be?" The Titans only response was to growl out **"not very."** Trying to take Pallas by surprise he lunged at him slashing for his throat only to be caught by Pallas' bare hand and had Riptide yanked out of his hand then thrown 50 feet behind Pallas. "You're done." Pallas simply stated.

Having no strength left Percy let himself ungraciously full onto his butt and sighed. "Why did Gaea send you after me when I'm already in the pit?" Percy asked feeling he had nothing left to try. Pallas looked at him and sat down next to him surprising the demigod and saying, "She didn't." Looking skeptically at the titan Percy asked, "What about the whole "my lady wants you alive" thing?" Snorting Pallas replied, "My lady is my wife. As if I would ever work with that old dirty hag." Percy jumped to his feet and said in a low tone, "Wait, wait, wait, timeout. You're telling me this whole time it was Lady Styx who sent you to me?! Wouldnt that mean the whole fight was pointless!" Grinning, Pallas punched Percy in the back of the leg effectively making him sit back down. "Don't tell me it was a bad fight. I haven't had to go in my Titanic form in many millennia!" the titan exclaimed with too much joy in his voice for Percy's liking.

Sighing in defeat Percy questioned Pallas, "to ask the million dollar question, why did Styx send you anyways? And are we seriously supposed to be cool after that fight?" Pallas' eyes glazed over for a split second before responding, "First of all I'm here to give you a warning to not attempt to swim in her river as you will dissolve into nothingness, so you can never again gain Styx' blessing. Secondly, you already know how gods can fade due to lack of worship. You also know Gods grow stronger the more they are worshiped. Well with you running around taking on immortals as a mere demigod and facing Kronos using Styx' blessing, which is what it is really called, worship for her has gone up even more than in the old days. However, she doesn't get more powerful with it like other gods. Her oaths become much more binding and she can fairly punish those who break their oaths even the immortals," he paused for a moment lost in thought before saying, "Consequently Orcus, the Roman god of broken oaths has become more powerful as well and will likely approach you sometime later, however that will be for a later time."

Letting his eyes glaze over again for a couple seconds he then continued, "sorry getting sidetracked. Why Styx sent me is because she wants to repay the favor in the form of information on how to survive. And to answer your second question, **No**." He once again stopped only this time it was to send a meaningful glare to Percy who gulped. Satisfied with the reaction he got Pallas carried on, "My wife wanted me to essentially 'escort' you out of here but with your low blow I think you deserve to try your luck alone. No complaining just suck it up kid. Now onto the important parts, I realize you have been using the Cocytus as a water source to reenergize. Well don't, the only reason you not have been completely affected by its magic is that you're a son of Poseidon. Your way to survive the naturally poisonous air down here will be to drink the Phlegethon river. It seems crazy at first, but it's also the river used in the Fields of Punishment so the souls can continue with their suffering work. Again, it sounds bad but its necessary for you to remain strong and survive here, to get to the river you will continue walking across the hill behind me and scale down the cliff, from then it will only a mile away and it will heal you. You'll find monsters down there and you'll follow them, they will lead you to the doors of death eventually."

After catching his breath he continued, "should you really need to escape somewhere nowhere is exactly safe. However, there are places monsters avoid like a fallen shrine to Hermes, the forest of curses which you should definitely avoid, the drakon swamp is somewhere I even have not explored, and then there are the poison meadows of Ahklys. She is only ever seen with either Apate or sending people and monsters alike into Chaos. Any questions? No? Ok well, my work here is done. Consider yourself even with Styx as of now." As he stood and turned to leave he stopped and looked at Percy with a slight glare. "For your sake, I hope we never meet again because of what I'll do to you." With that dark message, he started glowing a dark orange making Percy divert his gaze and disappeared from sight.

Percy sat still on the floor processing everything he just learned. To begin with, he was supposed to have Pallas' assistance in getting out but he blew that by jumping into a fight against a titan, which given his circumstances he was in the right to do. Then he was also warned not to ever try to go swim in the Styx river because he wouldn't survive, he admitted he would have liked to have the blessing to traverse **Tartarus** but quickly decided to let it go since it couldn't be helped. "To survive I'll have to drink out of the Phlegethon...a river of fire. Which is who knows how far fighting monsters the whole way. I am so _fucked_..." Much to the disdain of his body, which felt like everything was on fire, he stood up and looked in the direction of where Pallas had said and only saw mounds of the black glass making up the floor he stood on that he would say were the equivalent to hills for as far as he could possibly see. Beginning his long walk he could only think "Yep, I am definitely _fucked."_


	3. Surprises Surprises!

**All rights and characters are owned by Uncle Rick.**

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Slash. Swipe. Walk. Block. Dodge. Roll. Get up. Walk. Roll. Duck under a cyclops fist. Slash. Walk. Block. Parry. Swipe. Thrust. Walk. Reverse grip thrust. Spin away. Slash. Walk. Spin to the right and slash to kill the hellhound that jumped at his back. Walk. Thrust. Block. Dodge. Slash. Walk.

That's the pattern that Percy followed for at least the last 4 hours. Really he lost track after the tenth hellhound jumping from the shadows. That had been only 40 minutes in. His body was looking terrible, with his purple Camp Jupiter in tatters thanks to all the claw slashes on his back, chest, and torso. Miraculously his pants only had few rips in them. Either the monsters had a lot more manners than he gave them credit for or he was way to naturally cautious towards damage on his pants. His feet were another story however, he only had the bottom soles of the shoes while the rest of what was left from the top of his shoes appeared to be the shoelaces. Every time his toes brushed against the glass like floor he winced wanting to shout but knowing better than that.

After finishing up the last of the three huge cyclops that wanted to try their luck on the "Salty demigod" as they called him, he realized he didn't see any more monsters in the area. Wanting to drop down and sigh in relief he knew from first-hand experience the peace was only momentary. Percy kept walking already hearing the snarls coming from the shadows knowing any moment a hellhound would attempt the same as all the others and jump at his back aiming for his throat. He was unpleasantly surprised to see that more ten hellhounds had emerged from the shadows all looking ready to pounce.

Not turning his back on any of them he slowly backed up briefly noticing that he was now going uphill. "At least they're fighting an uphill battle," he thought grimly. Thinking that he should take this slow he decided to take the defensive. Just as one hellhound on his far left was ready to pounce they all paused upon hearing half a dozen of wild centaurs of the same breed as the ones from the battle of New Rome approach at top speed. Percy was very much so on edge now seeing so many opponents at once. However, just as he thought things couldn't get worse he saw that the centaurs weren't alone.

Each of the wild monsters were being ridden by empousa who all had a wicked grin on their faces. Now seeing the dazed and blank looks on the centaurs he noticed they had been charmspoken by the empousa. Looking back for a split second to check his surroundings he was surprised to see that the cliff mentioned by Pallas earlier was there only 400 feet behind him. He would have to fight to get there because all of the monsters were deceptively fast. He couldn't take all of the monsters at the moment, but he also couldn't run so he decided that holding his ground here was all that he could do for the moment. Suddenly without warning the empousa and their centaur mounts all turned away quickly and sped off. What he didn't like, however, was what he heard them speak amongst themselves. He vaguely heard one of the empousa say, "Master will be pleased to know we found the demigod. After ripping him apart we will be properly rewarded indeed."

Groaning at his luck Percy muttered, "I would rather face the monsters than seeing who this master will turn out to be." Feeling the adrenaline in full effect now he decided to bring the numbers down before fully getting into it. His knees buckled for a split second when he was starting to summon water from the air behind the hellhounds. Solidifying it as much as he could he forced it to whip back and strike at four of the hellhounds following closely behind the center one already charging. Instead of killing four like he planned, fatigue hit him breaking his concentration only letting the water slash through the two hellhounds on the right of the front one. now he had only eight monsters to deal with but they were all nearly the size of Mrs. O'Leary meaning they were all massive and deceptively fast.

Cursing his weakness he ducked under the first hellhound and was about to strike its stomach but had to quickly spin to the right to avoid getting bitten by one of the hellhounds he failed to kill. Without having to look having heard a growl only a monster could make directly in his blind spot behind him he knew it was about to pounce and eventually it would be the death of him. Instinctively he found himself closing his eyes and focusing on the water molecules, he didn't try to make water appear but he felt for any movement just like he would if he were in the ocean and was surprised to 'see' in his new found vision that two hellhounds had managed to get into his normal visual blind spot. Opening his eyes again he still felt the air around him and along with it the movements that occurred within it. The smile on his face could only be seen as terrifying and predatory.

Momentarily distracted by his new development, the second beast he failed to kill with the summoned water chose that moment to lunge with its clawed paws readied to slice through his chest. However, it was horrified to see the demigod move faster than anything it had seen before and simply spin left of the lunge with his signature sword, Riptide, in a reverse grip and closed eyes. He spun with such ease and perfection it looked so simple ro replicate but to time it mid-lunge was anything but simple. The reverse grip on his sword allowed him to quickly stab the beast in the chest making its momentum stop mid-air. When the last part of his spin was done the hellhound was already golden dust on the floor, the sight made the four nearest hellhounds hesitate. The other three all bounded towards the son of Poseidon snarling in complete outrage oblivious to the hesitance of their comrades. Two were coming from his left while the last of them was coming directly from his front thinking a straight attack might work.

Percy needed to kill the lone one but wouldn't be able to easily kill it if he let them approach so he charged the lone beast to turn things in his favor slightly. Just before reaching the hellhound he twisted to the right mid step making the beast skid past him, he took the opportunity to stab Riptide into the thigh of his opponent and swung up using the impaled blade as a make-shift step to climb on to its back. Now riding the hellhound he let a loud "Woohoo" as if it were a mechanical bull and even with it buckling all over the place he forced it towards the other two charging hellhounds who seemed surprised by the change of events. Just as he made his new mount crash into one of the hellhounds he was satisfied to see that Riptide had returned to his pocket already then uncapped it mid-air. Jumping to avoid the crash that would soon occur with Riptide tightly in his hand, he made sure to jump towards the other charging hellhound while swinging a powerful overhead slash cutting straight through the head of the beast making it turn to gold dust before he landed. He turned to see that one of the two crashing hellhounds had turned to dust and the other had claw marks across its chest and ichor on its own claws that killed the other beast either from anger at crashing or accident, Percy didn't care.

"Five down five to go, let's do this already," Percy said out of breath. The injured hellhound was the first to respond with a weak swipe towards him. Percy didn't miss a beat as he jumped back to avoid being sliced to pieces and even managed to cut the paw of the beast completely off. The formerly ferocious and merciless beast was now whimpering like a lost puppy immediately making him feel guilty reminding him of Mrs. O'leary, but just as quickly as the feeling came he squashed it down thinking back on the titan war and how many of his friends had died to the same kind of monster breed. Seeing the weak beast he decided to just end its pain so he willed all the ichor that had leaked out of the wound to solidify and blasted it into its heart killing it instantly. Now there were only four hellhounds from the original ten that had decided to attack him. Without looking he turned and in a wide arc, he sliced one of the hellhounds that was hiding in his blind spot across the chest making it growl out in pain.

The two he failed to kill with his powers decided they had waited long enough and slipped into the shadows. Percy's eyes widened as he realized he could feel them with his "vision" moving in the shadows so fast he could barely keep up so he jumped as far back as he could in one leap making one of the hellhounds faceplant into the glassy dirt. Taking advantage of its bad position he ran forwards wanting to impale the beast before it got the chance to attack again. However, he was forced to roll to his left to avoid a set of dangerously sharp teeth wincing as his now bare shoulder made contact with the floor. Not even a moment after getting up he again had to roll to get away from another set of teeth jumping out from the shadows. Panting as he struggled to get up he looked up to see three hellhounds circling him waiting for a chance to attack. Closing his eyes he saw one of the three jumping into a shadow and the last of the four took its place. Percy's eyes widened as they opened noticing that a hellhound was about to jump from his own shadows form so instinctively he wildly slashed at the spot the monster jumped out of with it only showing its head before turning to dust.

The last three hellhounds that were still circling the demigod all howled out seeing yet another of their kind be cut down in minutes. "You know... Lupa trained me in how to fight wolves who or creatures who circle you and _I have my own way of dealing with this type of fight_ ," he said with a low dangerous voice. Without waiting for any type of response he willed the remaining ichor that stained the floor to wrap around the grip of Riptide and flung it at the hellhound circling behind him killing it as Riptide sunk into its head. As soon as the blade hit the floor he willed it to spin and kill the front beast passing close enough to the other hellhound to cut it on the chest making it whimper upon feeling the Celestial Bronze. With only one hellhound left not wanting to let the tiredness affect his voice he quietly said to it, "So how will you have it?" Its only response was to whimper and lower its head in submission towards him. He caught a glimpse of its eyes and was surprised to see they had lost most of their feral intensity. His thoughts quickly went to Daedelus and that he could have tamed Mrs. O'leary in a similar fashion, however, he didn't fully trust his ability to tame any type of animals let alone a wild monster.

Sighing he said, "Just get out of here and kill any human has done evil ok?" He thought he saw it nod its head once but he could have imagined that because things were beginning to turn dark. Only his combination of stubbornness and sheer determination kept him awake, however, it didn't stop him from falling onto his back on the floor. "Maybe a little rest will be good for me," he mumbled only to force his eyes open again as he was about to pass out. His only problem laying down other than being in a place worse than hell was the glass shards he completely forgot about were now poking at his back so he decided to sit up while he rested. He made sure not to let himself fall asleep or pass out by half-assedly slapping himself.

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It took Percy at least 40 minutes to finally get himself off the sharded floor. Despite the moment of rest, his breathing was labored and his body still felt like he had just been dipped in the Styx all over again. Groaning at the feeling of his boiling skin he was now entirely sure he was only alive because he was a son of Poseidon which granted him an unnatural amount of heat resistance. At this point he was now forced into fully realizing why **Tartarus** was a prison in for monsters and why all immortals feared to come down here, it was entirely worse than hell and that's saying a lot from Percy because he had been in there several times.

Making his way to the cliff edge should only have taken him minutes at most but the combination of the steepness and weariness of his body took its tool making the walk a painful 20 minutes. Overlooking the edge a question popped into his head. "Just how long have I spent here... How long will I have to spend here?... No focus Percy. Focus." His eyes widened in surprise seeing the drop down the cliff was way too far for him to go down in his current condition. However, he could feel a small amount of energy hit him from what he assumed to the Phlegethon. With a renewed determination he used the energy he got to cover his fingertips in clawlike shapes from the water he just summoned from the air itself. Putting his feet on the closest ledge he sank his clawed finger into the cliff and immediately knew it was going to be an even more painful way down.

With gritted teeth, bleeding fingers, and sore arms from having his feet momentarily slip Percy looked down only to groan in annoyance seeing he wasn't even halfway down from his now 15-minute slow descent. Whenever he would be close to losing concentration on his make-shift water claws he would feel another surge of strength from the river as if the fates themselves were telling him not to give in just yet and to keep going. Three close calls of hanging on with only one clawed hand in the cliff later he saw he had finally got halfway down. Sighing he muttered, "I really can't be asked to do this but it should be easy from now on right?"

He was proven wrong almost immediately upon seeing that the edge was now both steeper and had little to no ledges for him to put his feet on. He now had only three seemingly suicidal options, one jump and test his luck, two, attempt to climb back up the cliff, or three through sheer willpower climb down a cliff so steep he would be only able to use his arms and upper body strength before passing out. Percy just shrugged and seemed to say screw as he attempted to sink his clawed fingertips only to have to try again as the wall was now a lot tougher to break through or he was just that much weaker. It was several more minutes before he found a sturdy and large enough ledge for him to stand on, using the opportunity to give his arms and fingers a nice rest he looked down to see hehe only moved about 10 feet down.

When Percy finally reached the floor he wanted to collapse and cry in a mixture of both joy and pain but barely contained himself remembering he still had to reach the river which was over an antagonizing mile away. He nearly moaned out loud when a fresh wave of energy hit him just from being so close to the river, he had to remind himself that son of Poseidon or not he would die swimming in a river of fire no matter how badly he wanted to. Walking, no, more like stumbling his way towards the Phlegethon river he was more than glad to only encounter one stray telkhine which was gold dust faster than it could turn around.

Seeing the flames of the river now, however, instead of feeling strength Percy felt while climbing down the cliff he felt completely drained with all the exhaustion hitting him tenfold. He collapsed at the bank of the river nearly falling into it. He looked down at his body for the first time gasping at the boils covering his chest as well as the glass shards sticking out of his shoulders and back. Now seeing his scarred and bleeding body he felt the pain that came along with it and wanted to scream out loud but couldn't because of his now noticeably dry throat. Throwing caution to the wind he forced his hands into the fire ignoring the surprisingly freezing feeling coming from the fire. Desperately scooping the fire as if it were water he forced it into his throat.

Feeling the fire flowing in his body he jumped back 5 feet onto his back trying to claw at the fire in his throat. Wide-eyed Percy realized he was rolling towards the river in his excruciating pain filled panic so he forced himself to roll the other way only to hit a boulder so hard he began to see black on the edges of his vision. Before blacking out he could have sworn he felt eyes on him. _"Fuck me,"_ was all he could mutter before passing out.

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When the demigod woke from his impromptu nap a couple hours later the first thing he noticed was that his eyes wouldn't open then he heard something big walking towards his sprawled form on two feet. Remembering his ability to see through moisture in the air he pushed his senses another 50 feet or so and 'saw' a Laestrygonian giant licking his lips probably thinking of getting an easy meal. Just as it reached the demigod with closed eyes it was surprised to see a sword strike at the bottom of its leg deeply cutting into its Achilles tendon forcing it onto a knee.

Still with closed eyes Percy Jackson rose from the ground Riptide in hand facing the man-eating giant and without a word he plunged Riptide hilt deep into the giant's heart covering his arm in a splash of ichor then golden his eyes he saw he had somehow managed to roll 40 feet away from the bank of the river. Surprisingly he still felt as tired as he did before the river. Taking a deep breath he stumbled to the river cursing having to do it again. When he put his hands into the river he surprised that it only felt slightly warm he just shrugged and chucked it down, however, he wasn't expecting things to go the way it did.

Instead of feeling like his insides were boiling inside out it was as if he was drinking a glass godly nectar. That wasn't even the biggest surprise, it was when the flames of the Phlegethon started to swirl around his body only 5 feet away from him encasing him in his own dome of fire. At first, he began to panic when the flames started to crawl across the floor like a shadow would, but when it touched the exposed injured part of his leg it seemed to be healing him just like water would. Relaxing he let himself be overcome by the flames and it forced his arms straight out and tilted his head back making it feel like he was modeling. When the flames finished healing Percy's body his knees buckled and he was panting from the sudden power.

 **"Rise, my warrior,"** a cold feminine voice said from the rising flames. "Uhhhh," was Percy's only response. He could practically feel the voice roll her eyes. Spreading his senses out he noticed a woman standing in the middle of the river which made him cock his head to the side frown in here direction. "How is you can see me?" She asked somewhat harshly. "Uhh, I can't. I can sense you though," was his dumbfounded answer. "Let me make this quick for us both then. Whenever one of us underworld river gods' allow a living mortal to leave our waters for the first time unscathed they get something in return. For Styx when she let Achilles live he gained the fighting skills of a god. Later on, you only got the iron skin, not the natural skill. Now you are the first to get my 'blessing' and my fire appears to heal you instead of harm you. How strange." She explained in one breath.

Scratching his head he asked, "Sooo... does this make me your champion or chosen warrior?" She sent him a glare saying, "No. A million times no. And before you ask another stupid no you shouldn't even touch the rest of the rivers since their god have each long since faded. Now anything else before I regret my decision more than I already do?"

Percy tried to be respectful not wanting to anger the goddess anymore summarizing, "So you're telling me that the 'blessing' makes the river heal me...when it was already supposed to?" Phlegethon sighed in annoyance before answering, "It would have killed you if it weren't for the blessing. Stupid mortals. Its healing is only supposed to work in the underworld to dead mortals. Not alive ones in **Tartarus.** Done yet?" Percy barely finished nodding his head when she vanished from his 'vision' and had the rivers flames swirling around his body making him feel strength and power he hadn't since being on the Argo II. "Annabeth..." Percy muttered. He hadn't thought about her or well anything other than surviving since falling, he would have felt guilty about it if he wasn't constantly in life and death situations.

Stretching his muscles he wasn't surprised to feel that he now only had faint scars on his body in places he had been previously cut open. Rolling his shoulders to return some feeling to them he winced seeing several glass shards digging into his skin, so he stepped towards the Phlegethon until he was completely submerged. It felt great for him to feel his body not be wounded or exhausted but in place of the pain, it was replaced by sleepiness reminding him that he has been awake(mostly) for over a day now. Deciding that he deserved some sleep he stayed in the Phlegethon for protection. He fell asleep as soon as he closed his eyes.

In Percy's dreams, he was merely floating in the air peacefully with his eyes closed when he remembered that the Romans led by Octavian were probably still marching to destroy camp half-blood. Mentally groaning he tried to take control of his dream to take him to any of his old friends from camp half-blood. Five minutes later he was ready to give up when he reappeared next to someones sleeping form, realizing he was in Hypnos' cabin he called out to the sleeping form for some time. When they finally turned around they were muttering about sleep but stopped wide-eyed seeing him. Sheepishly rubbing his neck Percy said, "Hey Clovis. I have a lot to explain but not much time. I need you to get a message to the Romans ok?"

Getting out of his dazed state getting a lot more serious and awake than Percy had ever seen he said, "I'm listening." Quickly Percy explained how eidolons took over Leo making the Romans turn on them and then Annabeth regaining the Athena Parthenos which led to Percy falling into **Tartarus** to close the doors of death from this side. He barely had time to tell Clovis to tell Reyna that they needed a Roman to return the statue or else the gods would remain divided. As Clovis told Percy that the Romans had been surrounding the Greek camp for over a day now surprising him, his world began to fade away making him yell out, "Tell the head counselors to speak to Reyna!" Just like that, he was again floating in nothingness. Resting once more. He made sure to say a quick thank you to Morpheus and Hypnos.

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Waking up to see only flames all around him admittedly made Percy freak out for a couple seconds before he recalled why he was there in the first place. Smiling to himself after feeling his strength just about fully back he exited the river in what would be a very intimidating manner to those who saw him. They would see a river made of fire open to a teenager with no shirt and scars all along his chest showing of his perfectly muscled chest carrying a glistening sword and a dangerous edge in his eyes telling those who looked into them that he wouldn't be caught off guard and would be a bigger fight than they could possibly take on.

Twirling his sword as he left the river, Percy let his 'vision' scan over the area. He nearly groaned when he felt an ancient aura being emitted behind a set of boulders straight ahead. He really wished it was a powerful monster rather than what imagined it to really be. Before he could even move the boulder was blown to pieces presumably by the outstretched fist belonging to the 10-foot tall bald man wearing a chance chainmail shirt with a horrendous looking stripped black and yellow kilt. Surprisingly he had no shoes letting ichor smoother his feet and toes. Scars were seen on his massive legs going completely around his left leg as if was self-induced, if his appearance was anything to go by Percy believed it truly was self-induced. The shit-eating grin on the man's face seemed wrong in all the bad type of ways. Meeting Percy's powerful gaze with his own and a smile the man said, "Perseus in Greek means 'to destroy' or 'the destroyer', so say hello to the real destroyer, Perses. Titan of destruction ready to cause some real destruction." He finished with an overly dramatic bow sent mockingly to Percy. Percy decided to mess with the titan. "Who?"

Perses blinked once. Twice. Not letting himself be made a joke he let his power explode outwards towards the disrespectful demigod. He was extremely surprised to see that Percy took the power head on with arms crossed and a raised eyebrow saying, "That was rather peaceful you know." Grinning the Titan let out a booming laugh that shook the ground they stood on from the power of his voice alone."Oh, you will be _so mu **ch fun!"**_ Perses said clapping his hands like a maniac making Percy realize what the domain destruction did to someone's head. Without waiting for Percy's comeback he took out a massive Vikings two-sided battle axe. It was surprisingly beautiful looking with its pure oakwood staff and mortal steel on both sides at the end of the wood creating the sharp edges. It was beautiful yet horrible at the same time because he could see blood splattered on the steel and he would rather not know where it came from.

As Percy instinctively blocked the swing he realized just how much strength was behind it because he had to jump back from the first strike alone. Gritting his teeth Percy put his now able body to use allowing his agility to overcome his opponents brute strength approach. The next swing Percy dodged to left and was about to send his own swipe at Perses, but Perses' bloodied leg thought otherwise as it kicked him in the chest sending him stumbling back. Not wanting the demigod before him to recover Perses pressed his advantage by grabbing the axe in only his left hand and swung it at Percy who barely was able to jump to his left but soon regretted it when he was punched straight in the jaw by Perses now armored right arm.

Spitting blood out to the floor Percy looked up and saw Perses now had forgone the chainmail shirt wearing only his striped black and yellow kilt and drakon scale armor on his right shoulder all the way down to his knuckles. From the top of his armor, there was seeming one large-scale going from his neck to the edge of his shoulder. Under his shoulder, a small strap went around the right side of his chest all around his back going to the front of his chest on its left side in what appeared to be a belt-like strap. Just under the first scale, another went from the edge of his shoulder all the way six inches out into the air limiting his movements. From the first scale, it appeared as if another one was crudely cut and attached facing up to the neck barely covering it. Perses must have been a materialistic kind of guy because of the three extra small scales pointlessly facing up on top of the first shoulder scale combined with the scale under the primary shoulder scale one pointing outwards protecting nothing other than his ego. Down the right side of his bicep, three long scales over-lapped until they reached his elbow protecting only the outside of his arms. From the knuckles, there was a strap going around the inside of his hand keeping in place the scales running up to his forearm. The scales were needlessly jagged at the edges where they overlapped one another serving only an intimidating look rather than properly protecting his arm. Overall Percy was not impressed with the intimidation factor.

As if reading Percy's mind the titan pouted, which looked ridiculous on his psychotic face, and exclaimed, "Why don't I sense fear coming from you!" Percy indignantly snorted and said, "Cheap armor that shows their weakness isn't going to scare me, nor any experienced fighter." While Perses frowned and decided he needed to inspect his full arm armor for any weaknesses, Percy called out to the Phlegethon remembering how much easier it was to control it than summon water. He has pulled out his concentration when he felt Perses through his 'vision' jump at him after getting bored with his armor. He only managed to avoid the brunt of Perses two-sided axe with a deep gash to his collarbone

Annoyed, Percy ran at Perses carefully sidestepping to the left avoiding the axe coming for his head and blocked the titan's armored right fist with his left forearm. He attempted to stab Riptide into Perses' stomach but was blocked by the wooden staff part of his axe and shoved backward. Not wanting to lose the offensive Percy sprinted back at the laughing titan swinging Riptide in a dangerous arc but was again stopped by the wooden staff part of Perses' axe, only this time Percy was ready to be pushed back and didn't let himself. Instead, he let Riptide slide down the axes' hilt dangerously closer to the Titans' fingers. Grunting Perses pushed back before he lost a finger and said in between laughs that hadn't stopped, " **Atta boy**!" His voice was laced with power and venom alike.

Swinging again Percy knew this fight wasn't going to be particularly technical or skilled. It was just a matter of who got sliced open first for the other to continue the aggression. Several powerful swings later, Percy was the first to be hit on his right bicep from the exchanges after he tried to slice through the wooden staff only for his sword to get wedged and leave a dent. He would have continued to try and cut the staff but when he looked at the spot his blade had cut there wasn't a single mark. Mentally cursing his stupidity for not thinking about the possibility of a Titan having an enchanted weapon, he faked a high overhead swing but last second spun his sword downwards and got a slice into the titans left side.

Before the Titan could counter-attack with his huge two-sided axe, Percy backed up beginning to circle the Titan who had a wild look in his eyes and sadistic looking smile. Not liking being on the defense anymore Perses swung his two-sided axe in a one-handed grip only for Percy to easily duck under the wild swing and went to punch the titan receiving a knee to the face. Cursing himself for letting himself get hit so many times. Shaking his head he didn't want to let anger cloud his judgment so he stepped back to collect himself. Apparently, Perses mistook it for fear or hesitance because he threw his head back roaring in laughter.

Hearing Percy's now rapidly approaching footsteps Perses looked down with annoyance which quickly changed to surprise and horror as Percy was already mid-swing on his unprotected left side. His only choice was to jump back and minimize damage, it worked better than Percy would have liked. Jumping not only saved him from being critically injured but left him with only a deep gash hitting bone from his leg and spilling ichor to the floor. Seeing the ichor Percy raised his left hand, making the ichor float up as well and then it seemed to push into the wound making it a lot worse than it was initially. Cruel as it may have been it allowed to Percy to disarm Perses and swing his sword to his throat.

Just as he was sure the fight was over Percy had to stop his sword mid-swing and jump back covering his eyes to avoid being disintegrated by the dark purple glowing titan who just assumed his Titanic form. Several minutes later Percy let his senses spread out and in his 'vision' that Perses wasn't glowing any longer but still radiated close to the same power as before. **"Ready to get serious kiddo?"** Percy swore he heard the predatory smile as he got up and opened his eyes to see the titan injury-free. Sighing Percy waited for Perses to do something but didn't. Suddenly Percy's eyes widened when he 'saw' Perses let most of his powers over destruction flow unto their surrounding.

The effect was immediate as the ground began to shook so much Percy, son of the Earthshaker, was having trouble staying upright while Perses looked like he was in his natural element, which he technically was. To make matters worse some of the glass shards from the floor began to fly up cutting Percy's exposed skin. Seconds later liquid shot out from the floor breaking into it in the process. However, the liquid wasn't _just_ water it was water from Acheron or Styx considering his lack of control over the water. Glaring at the smug titan, Percy stomped his feet showing his earthshaker abilities while calling for the Phlegethon that was deep underground and dodging the sprouting water as if they were geysers. The cuts from the shards across his body were taking its toll on his body by breaking his concentration occasionally. When normal dirt began falling around him from above thanks to the power battle between destruction and unpracticed Earthsaker abilities combined with the air beginning to suffocate him slightly and a charging titan Percy had had enough.

He didn't call for the Phlegethon to respond to his will. No. He _made_ it come to him. When it did it replaced all the other waters sprouting out from the floor and encased his body healing him immediately. When Perses got out of his shook from seeing the flaming son of Poseidon he was outraged that a weak godling had managed to last so long against him. Jumping at Percy with no technique or instinct other than kill in mind he was easily swatted aside making him drop his two-sided axe yet again. Snarling Perses didn't even reach for his axe as he ran blindly towards the demigod only for Percy to flip in mid-air over Perses and slash him through the back deep enough for his target to howl out in pain. Convinced in taking down the demigod he let all his power out in hopes of killing the demigod once in for all. His power accumulated into a large explosion blasting 200 hundred feet outwards with Perses in the center of a crater and only dust around him. The titan laughed.

The laughter stopped when he saw under the dust ahead of him a mixture of the signature flames that came from the Phlegethon and water making a small condensed dome. As the dome fell the water and Phlegethon stuck to the body of a pissed off looking Percy Jackson. Staggering back at Percy's glare Perses could only stutter out, "But...h...how? HOW could you have Survived all of my powers over destruction... **HOW**?!" When he finished he was panting feeling the effect of letting out so much raw uncontrolled power. Percy for his part had taken only part of the blast, but even then he had burn marks on his left arm which was still being healed by water and The Phlegethon. He staggered towards Perses smirking quietly saying, "You did say I was the destroyer, didn't you? Hmm, how about destroyer of destruction. Now that's money."

Being made a joke out of was not something Perses was going to let happen again that day. He summoned his axe once again instead of flashing out to safety due to his anger blinding him. For an exhausted titan he moved faster than Percy could have imagined at the moment. Roaring out in anger Perses lifted his double-sided axe overhead ready to decapitate the demigod in one swing.

Percy smirked.

Perses realized his mistake too late as his swing and jump had too much momentum to stop now. He looked down to his abdomen which exploded in pain from the Celestial Bronze blade sticking out of it. His axe which had been about to swing down and cut the demigod into two fell from his grip. Perses fell to his knees surprisingly with a look of acceptance.

There were no words said as Percy pulled Riptide out of the titan's body and looked down on Perses. He reared Riptide back one last time and plunged it his heart without remorse like only someone who has had to of done the same thing before. He was a veteran of the second Titan War. Trained by Romans during his case of insomnia. He couldn't be weak, not when he was seen as a leader. Percy sword was now covered in gold dust and he nearly collapsed into the pile of gold but a freezing hand held onto his shoulder that said, "There's a deadly weapon in there that would have killed you if you fell in." Percy wanted to question what weapon but he decided he needed to know who was with him more than that so he asked feeling darkness take him, "Who are you?..." He felt another cold hand on his waist when his legs couldn't support him anymore with the voice saying, "I'm Khione, goddess of snow. And right now, we are each others only hope for survival." That was the last he heard before he felt himself pass out again that day thinking, "Why do the fates hate me so much."

 **A/N:** Sorry for the delay, to make it up to you readers I made this chapter extra long. I wanted to end it originally with him drinking the Phlegethon, but I figured I owed a little bit more. To make things clear Khione didn't attack the Argo II crew like in Riordan's book since I wanted my own little twist. That being said Leo won't be randomly sent to Ogygia since I thought Leo with Calypso seemed so last minute and unrealistic.


	4. The Goddess!

Opening his eyes Percy expected have been killed and sent to the underworld. Maybe Khione, who he was sure would have tortured his unconscious body, captured him for Gaea. A part of him wished he would be captured so he wouldn't However, he didn't know how to react to waking up covered in flames and a goddess freaking out trying to cover him in snow screaming bloody murder as his flames melted it into water further healing him from his former exhausted state. She was in the middle screaming about the fates and stupid demigods when she froze seeing him rising with his right hand outstretched then lowered it making the flames go back down. "Hmm, either Phlegethon wanted to heal me or the river comes to me when I need it. Could be very useful," he mused to himself not taking notice of the ironically frozen in shock goddess.

"How could you possibly survive the Phlegethon's river fire!" She shrieked making Percy jump. He would have answered if he wasn't in the middle of drawing Riptide and making the Phlegethon rise around him as he recalled Leo telling him that Khione had frozen the hunters and only his flames allowed Hera to be freed. He almost smiled at himself realizing he wasn't as stupid as people claimed he was. Spreading his flames out he let them surround the goddess limiting her powers visibly making her begin to sweat. Her next words, however, stopped him momentarily from trying to kill her. "I swear on the **Styx** I'm here to help you out of here on my own accord." Khione tried to say calmly but it sounded more like she was panicking. Thunder seemingly shook the 'sky' above. He knew she could have been tricking him with her wordplay but a gut instinct told him to listen, however, he didn't move away Riptide or the Phlegethon but he also didn't proceed in attacking the goddess.

Khione sighed accepting the fact that he wouldn't budge anymore and for good reason. "I swear on the **Styx** Gaea turned on me. She sent me here years ago to ensure I didn't retaliate... I can't get out because her giants and forces took control of the Doors of Death and would take care of me on site, but with you here... I know of the prophecy to close the doors. So long as you can get me out I'll do anything to work with you!" As Percy listened he paled hearing it had been years since she was thrown here which seemed impossible, unless... He replied shakily, "Years? How long have I been down here?..." Khione's facial expression quickly went from in pain due to being so close to the rivers fire combined with confusion too in pain with understanding. She muttered, "Right...Demigods wouldn't have known... To make this simple for you, time down **Tartarus** is different than up in the mortal world. Years here could be weeks up there, sometimes weeks here could be days there." She paused at his unbelieving look then said slowly so he would understand completely, "I swear on the **Styx** what I have said to you is true." Thunder was heard rumbling over them.

Seeing as she was still free from reproduction combined with the fact he was beginning to get slightly tired from his control over he let the Phlegethon fade away and the fire sunk into the glass shard floor. He started, "I have several questions. If I don't like the answers you leave me in peace or you can try your luck against me." She only nodded her head so he asked, " To begin with, why did Gaea turn on you and fear you could do something against her?" She pondered for a moment not wanting to say the wrong answer. Under normal circumstances, it would be beyond strange to see a goddess with the power to take on an Olympian being demanded questions by a mere demigod instead of being the one asking questions herself. **Tartarus** was everything but normal circumstances.

Thinking she had the best answer to respond his question Khione responded quietly remembering what happened, "After failing to stop the Greeks quest, Gaea thought I failed her on purpose. She was so skeptical of me she turned my father against me and he struck me down when my back was turned. Gaea had more influence over my father than I did. She worried about me doing something because I can retaliate by making part of the seven stronger. Over time only gods and goddess have had control over ice or now, maybe a couple dryads or naiads got the power, but never a demigod. That changed a couple centuries ago when I took a son of Poseidon under my tutelage out of anger against Poseidon." She stopped again lost in thought remembering Poseidon accidentally having had destroyed her last remaining temple out of anger.

Shaking her head she said, "Everyone knows he cares for his children more than most gods do so I took his son, who was angry at his father not saving his friend during a quest, and wanted to rip away any ties the boy had to Poseidon. Long story short he only had very little control over water where it didn't heal him and that was his extent of his powers. So I tried taking that little control of water and helped him mature it into something different. He was the first known demigod to control ice thanks to me. He inspired mortals into creating the legend of 'Jack Frost'. I can help you get that power as well." She finished out of breath and Percy merely cocked his head to the side making her roll her eyes then said, "I swear on the **Styx** that was true." For the third time, Percy heard the thunder without her being punished.

Content with that Percy thought out loud, "So you're offering to help me gain control over ice and in exchange I have to take you with me out of here?"

"No, I want you to give me your word you'll make my punishment for 'going against the gods' as minimal as possible. I'm not idiotic enough to think I'll go unpunished," she replied. Slightly narrowing his eyes asked, "Why would you need my word to vouch for you? Surely your father could assist you claiming Gaea had involuntarily gotten influence over you." Not having had expected the response she said, "Right now I know your word carries a lot of weight. A lot more than mine or my fathers so I will take anything I can get to begin with." Accepting her answer he asked his next question, "Tell me more about this ice powers. I don't want them to be like my hurricane and earthshaker abilities where they can cause just as much damage as they can help."

"It would eventually end up like your abilities with water although not as natural to learn, with practice it'll be simple. I've taught many of Poseidon's children how to control these abilities and powers, but the extent of their power was determined by their will mostly. Any other questions?" Thinking about the pros of the new abilities and the cons of having her potentially turn on him he would not have accepted but again that gut instinct hit him telling him to do so. It didn't feel godly by any means, in fact, the only other time he recalled feeling something like it was during the final standoff against Kronos when he understood the meaning of the great prophecy. It was fate nudging him into a certain direction whether for the better or worse he didn't know, but chose to follow it.

Extending his hand Percy put on a tight smile intended to show he wasn't happy with it he said, "I'll try to minimize your punishment when we get out. You have my word." Khione tentatively took his hand about to respond before being cut off by the glare that sent shivers down her spine going wide-eyed at the demigod who was now up in front of her face gripping her hand in a way she was sure would leave a mark. The moment could have been seen like one that only two intimate people would share if it weren't for the glare on Percy's face and veins slightly protruding from his hand. He said, "Don't, however, think you could possibly take me for a fool because the moment you attempt or even think of something against me you will be wishing for an eternity down here. This is too serious of a matter for anything to slow me down. Is that understood?"

Numbly nodding her head she stuttered out, "I- thank y- you need to practice." During the awkward and uncertain quietness that unfolded, she was desperately trying to regain her composure but couldn't seem to find the energy or effort inside of herself to do so. "I'm the goddess here why can't I control myself after only a threat that is impossible... unless it would be possible to someone with so much potential, that is much to fear..." she thought in her head finally noticing Percy's expectant look... Rather dumbly she asked off the top of her head like she was the one with ADHD, "How could you possibly have controlled the fire. It wasn't a son of Poseidon ability that much is certain."

Not yet being able to trust her he only replied with, "It was the Phlegethon's' water." Seeing his distant reply that made more questions than answers, Khione chose to accept it and moved on to a different topic she wanted to talk about since she arrived seeing him kill a titan. "Despite killing Perses I still feel part of his presence where he has been dispatched a couple hours ago. Meaning you have spoils of war directly from killing a titan and my guess is it's a weapon or item powerful enough to hold his natural aura. It's off-putting, to say the least. It's yours by all means." Percy toyed with the idea of saying no, but then two thoughts struck him. First, he wasn't in the position to deny anything that could give him power like he usually was. The second thought was that just about any weak or strong monster could come by and snatch it.

Shrugging Percy with a seemingly bored voice but an intensity in his eyes it was off-putting for Khione said, "Lead the way then. In front of me." Stiffly nodding her head while being visibly uncomfortable with having a demigod telling her what to do. Walking behind her Percy finally realized that he had yet to fully _see_ her, so far he had only seen another goddess to be wary of so he decided to take in her appearance, not because he was one of _those_ guys, but because he was curious. Her skin was, of course, pale, so pale it was even more so than Nico's skin even after he had been in a jar by the giants. Her dazzling black hair was straight, he thought he caught it a part of it turn slightly curly for second but it soon went back to normal. She was a goddess so she, of course, had a seemingly perfect body of one while surprisingly not wearing a white dress like he was told but was wearing a simple pair of ripped blue jeans, he didn't want to know if they were supposed to be like that or not. He couldn't see what type of top or shirt she was wearing because she had a light blue cloak cover her upper body and went down to her brown boots. Percy was not surprised that she looked beautiful, she was a goddess after all, but was surprised to see that over her cloak on her back there was a quiver of arrows and a decently sized longbow, longer than those used by the Apollo children back at camp.

Taking in her appearance only lasted a couple seconds but it caught Khione's eye because she just huffed and turned around. "Must not like Poseidon's children much," Percy mused to himself. Snapping out of his thoughts he realized that when he woke up he wasn't at all where he had passed out. Suspiciously he asked the goddess, "What happened after I passed out?" Without looking away from where she was walking Khione said, "Somehow during your little fight and displays of powers you attracted most monsters in the vicinity, I trailed after them having nothing better to do and as soon as I saw you I saw my chance to finally free myself. Unfortunately, instead of being afraid of you, the monsters saw you were weak and I was forced to kill several annoying cyclops and Scythian draconian so they wouldn't kill you. Eventually, they got the hint and decided that fighting goddess wasn't smart, from then on I tried to find the nearest water source to help you regain consciousness. When I got to it I would have left if the cursed flames didn't wrap around you and pull you away into the river until you woke up."

Curious now more than suspicious Percy questioned, "How long was I out and how far are we?" She seemed to grimace as if the memory caused her pain, "Let's just say 'hours' answers both of your questions." A ghost of a smirk appeared on his face as he replied, "You were that desperate, huh?" She turned around to face him for the first time with a glare to rival Lupa's making Percy shiver and Khione smile cruelly which was what Percy had expected to see from her based on descriptions from Leo about the events at the Wolf House. Shuffling on the floor nearby alerted Percy to beware. Percy saw something moving in front of the goddess on the floor in the shape of a... "Oh gods" Percy muttered.

With quicker speed than any demigod, other than children of Hermes and Mercury, that Khione had ever seen Percy had Riptide in its sword form already slashing 5 feet in front of her right only raised an eyebrow, "Trying to scare me?" That's when Percy moved to show her the pit scorpion with its tail stuck into the floor thanks to Riptide holding it in place, its body was only the length of Percy's hand but that wasn't what worried her. What worried her so much about those scorpions was the strong poison they possessed which could make even a god have to reform. She had her mouth wide open staring at Riptide holding the small pit scorpion in place making her barely hear Percy's question. "Can your arrows go through its skin? It has surprisingly tough armor plates."

Finally snapping out of her daze Khione responded by creating an ice pike under the scorpion's belly and launching it upwards killing it. "Cool, will I be able to do that?" Percy blurted out making himself blush at letting his ADHD get the better of him. Ignoring his question, it was the first time Khione seemed to notice that he was still a demigod and not just a titan slayer to be wary of. The thought almost put a smile on her face until she remembered the fact that a mere demigod indeed did kill a titan and moved faster than she possibly could have unless taking her domain or divine form to stop a pit scorpion from attacking her. Frowning she continued back to where the titan's spoils were at.

======================== Line Break ========================

The entire walk back from the edge of the Phlegethon to where he finished Perses off, took over half an hour. Even though they were walking relatively slow it was way farther than Percy originally realized making him feel slightly guilty that Khione had to drag or carry him so far away while probably still having to fair off against the monsters that were around the area. During the fight, it appeared as though they had been seriously pushing each other around as seen by the crater that expanded over 100 feet outwards in each direction. Percy expected to either find nothing nearby or to find hordes of monsters trying to get at a free titans remains.

However, neither Khione nor Percy expected to find the center of the crater to have gold dust spread out covering it with a sole humanistic figure picking up a silver glistening sword. "What is that mortal doing so far away from the Delta of despairs," hissed out Khione while grabbing Percy's arm and dragging him back to the edge of the crater. He wanted to ask questions like why was she talking about a mortal? And what delta of despairs? But they were all cut off when he saw the 'mortal' finally as it stood up. Whatever it was it was definitely not a mortal. In fact, its features were so contorted they were reminiscent of an orc he had seen on t.v. a long time ago. Not to mention its excuse of an arm that looked as thin as a blade and the bent backward left leg it had. It even had a slightly green and red skin tone, but Percy didn't want to know where those came from. Gods the sight and slight stench filling the air alone almost made him puke. Khione, however, looked more pissed than she looked disgusted as if this was the normal down here. Percy shivered at the thought of those horrendous creatures were the norm.

Percy could tell that even with its strange limbs and it being hunched over it was still a solid 6 feet in height when upright with veins popping out of its body all over the places with them being most prominent on the biceps, thighs, and neck. In the moment it rose to its hunched over position from being crouched over Percy saw it only wore a lions cloth showing its skin was indeed a sickly shade of green. Mentally groaning Percy could only think, "Gods not another loin cloth wearing monster."

Khione being oblivious to Percy's disgust let some her natural godly aura flare outwards making the creature fall to his knees immediately. She was surprised to see Percy now with a wall of flames from the Phlegethon deep under the sharded floor directed at herself with a glare to go with it. Again, she was forced to remember that he was still a demigod and simple aura had a huge effect and her own up close could make mortals or demigods into frozen statues. "Sorry I forgot," Khione said not sounding sorry at all. Returning her attention back to the monster, she made ice come for her body seep out and slowly stretch towards the creature covering its body entirely. With a calm demeanor her voice came out strained saying, "Destroy it already, this isn't easy to hold!"

As Percy ran to slice the monsters head off he felt an unnatural amount of repulsion hit him as if what he was doing was wrong. However, the training with the Romans and having had been one of the main leaders during the battle of Manhattan had shown him how to push away those feelings when it came to survival. Just as he was about to slash Riptide into it but Khione stopped him saying, "You idiot! Celestial Bronze and Imperial Gold don't work on it! Just punch it. You have the strength to do so." Not trusting her word he carried on with his cut only to see it cut through ice easily enough but pash completely through it. Annoyed now, Percy brought back his fist and covered it in the River Phlegethon smashing the ice sculpture.

Breathing heavily Khione basically stomped towards Percy creating ice under her and leaving a trail of snow behind her. "You may consider highly of yourself, but down here you listen to me! You don't know anything!" Surprised by her outburst he just stared at her until his mouth opened before he could stop himself, "What was that thing." Cursing himself Percy looked away. Sighing again Khione felt a migraine forming already. "That is what is left of that mortal. It was sent by the gods for being one of the vilest of mortals, well that or for being dangerous or disrespectful to them." She added the last part full of anger then continued as if the little moment hadn't happened, "It was in the process of becoming a _mania._ Mania are spirits personifying insanity, madness, and crazed frenzy."

Understanding now why godly metals didn't work on it he nodded his head until realization hit him making him puke. "I.. just killed... a mortal." A distressed Percy said in between barfs. Khione felt no sympathy for the demigod. "If it makes you feel better those mortals sent here are said to have been too cruel for the Fields of Punishment. Hades, or Pluto whatever, agreed himself. Take for example Elizabeth Bathory or Joseph Stalin it took a mortal of that type of vileness to be sent here."

Still not particularly feeling good about having had killed a mortal, mania or not, he tried changing the subject by glaring at her and saying, "Next time you are going to let your aura flare out like that warn me. I counteracted it, but I could feel myself freezing solid rapidly." Responding in a flippant tone she said, "Well wish granted, I'm not going to be able to do that for quite a while. Godly powers like flaring a more potent aura, flashing away, or taking a divine form are very limited. Now go ahead and take your Spoils of War coming from a titan."

Content that Khione didn't push his uneasiness about killing a mortal he nodded and crouched down next to where the _mania_ had been looking over. He could see that for some reason a pair of clothes that definitely didn't belong to Perses were laid out as well as the gauntlet and armor covering Perses' right arm during their fight. He looked at Khione unimpressed. "Really," he said, "Clothes and flashy armor. That's what we came here for?" Looking at Percy like he was an idiot Khione just pointed to where Percy had destroyed the _mania_ muttering about idiots. Surprisingly Percy saw a sword in a leather scabbard with a single strap indicating it was to put on someones back.

As if he was in a daze, Percy slowly walked to the sword and picked it up. The sword appeared to be a hand and a half sword with the pommel, a swirl of dark grey and black color, curving to meet the sword's grip. The actual grip was the same shade of black on Nico's Stygian Iron sword went all the way to the cross guard which was at least twice the length of Riptide's. Unsheathing the sword it revealed the blade be significantly longer than Riptide, Riptide being under 3 feet and Perse's unnamed sword being around 3 and a half feet. Just by holding it for seconds Percy could see the type of power that could put into a single swing. It felt like the complete opposite of his sword, whereas Riptide allowed him to use more of his agility for quicker attacks, this one would use more power and would require a different type of practice and training.

Looking at the blade itself, it was a double-edged blade, like Riptide, and at first, glance looked like ordinary mortal steel, but upon closer inspection, Percy had a suspicion that it was a mix of metals like silver and Stygian Iron. Almost instinctively, he put the scabbard over his shoulder and held the sword out with one hand and took an experimental thrust like he would with Riptide but it felt completely wrong. Now he tried putting both hands on the sword and did what felt right, so did an over had slash onto the air followed quickly by a diagonal slash. It felt and looked sloppy but that was only because he wasn't used to it. Grinning he looked up from his sword to Khione who looked at him blankly. "What," was his dumb response to her look.

She instantly began feeling the migraine that came with dealing with a certain slow demigod. Cocking her head to the side ever so slightly she said, "As impressive as your physique is for a demigod or even immortal, don't you want to put on clothes now that you have them? Even if clothes are strange Spoils of War they are yours after all." Looking down for the first time in a long time he saw that his shirt which was previously only in tatters was now completely destroyed apart from a select few purple strands covering his chest while his pants remained with only minimal cuts and his shoes looked like socks that had been used up months after their time. He looked back at the pile of clothes and saw the kilt on top of a sleeveless leather fabric next to a pair of simple black combat boots. Looking back up Khione he blushed despite himself before asking, "Aren't you gonna turn around?" A smirk appeared on his face before saying, "I mean unless you were planning on starring at me its good."

He was pleased to see that her pale face turned a light shade of red that would have been invisible to anyone with a darker skin tone. Calling out his bluff she simply said, "Yes." Eyes widening Percy just stared at her until a smug smile crossed her face and he muttered a faint fine then turned around. Percy decided that he would keep his pants over the awful yellow and black kilt then made water out of the air and solidified it so he wouldn't have to get cut while sitting down. He sat down and put on his new combat boots content that they fit him perfectly.

He took off the leather scabbard on his back when it began to feel uncomfortable and took the chance to put on what he thought would be a shirt. It turned out to be more of a black leather vest with buttons on both the left and right side of the chest. More specifically it was a jerkin used in more medieval times. The right flap went all the way to his left side, as did the right flap but it had silver buttons where both flaps would end. The collar of the jerkin was naturally stood upwards. He put the strap to the scabbard over his right shoulder and under his left arm making it easy to reach with his right he had no sleeve he decided to try on the badly protected arm armor Perses had. He was surprised to see it shift getting rid of the shoulder-pad part of the armor which extended to cover the bicep poorly. Instead, he was left with a black vambrace going from his forearm to his knuckles, instead of metals it was made out of the same scales as before and each of where the plates of scales were, were outlined in Celestial Bronze. Strangely enough, Percy could feel the vambrace vibrate and glow with power.

Percy was still admiring the vambrace when he heard Khione mutter to herself, "Perses used his symbol of power, The Gauntlet of Destruction, on him and still didn't kill him... what is this monster capable of?..." On instinct and seemingly dazed Percy raised his fist and punched the ground and felt his earth shaker powers being used as everything around him shook violently. It felt like hours had passed in which he was in that position. Abruptly Percy stood up only for the everything to stop shaking and he realized that his punch alone was what shook the entire cavern that was Tartarus. He saw Khione slowly rise from the floor with shaky legs and feet that had been frozen to the ground she looked at him with barely concealed fear and stuttered out, "H-how... How d-did you do that for so long?" He shot her an annoyed glance as if to say "What?"

"The whole cavern shook for almost an hour and your eyes were glazed over." She continued with her normal bored and calm demeanor back, however, her brown eyes showed the reluctance to admit the fear she felt. "An h _our?!"_ he asked incredulously. She only nodded her head. Suddenly with his 'vision' of water molecules in the air working now that he was back in control, he felt a figure at the edge of the crater with a bow in hand. Too late did Percy realize that the figure had already shot at both himself and Khione. He barely had time to pull out Riptide and deflect the arrow using his sword. "The arrow must be made out of something strong for the point to have not been shattered or cut in half," he mused.

He was quickly broken out his musings by a scream coming from Khione as an arrow went through her leg. The impact of the arrow didn't seem bad, but when he saw the wound he saw a purple cooler mixed with the ichor coming from the wound. "I hate poison," Percy said through gritted teeth. He looked towards the figure only to see they were covered in a full on brown worn out cloak with a hood covering the assaulters face. The only thing visible was the left arm holding a longbow, a quiver over their back, and an arsenal of throwing knives strapped to the persons left side of their chest and thigh. A gust suddenly hit Percy making him stumble back and he heard a voice while he was hit say in such a quiet whisper it felt like he was imagining the wind speak to say, "Thank you for the power beacon." He was again hit by a gust of wind but he remained in place this time and heard the voice much clearer say, "It made my job a lot easier than it would have been to find and capture you and the traitor." Percy had no clue what was going on but it was clear this person was sent by Gaea.

This time Percy felt a push on the air and rolled aside to the left hearing the voice say, "I don't normally allow people to witness me but the price for you is so high I just have to know what is so special about you." Getting frustrated by the figure taking so much and not yet finding out who the person was, Percy asked, "Who even are you!" The figure seemed to ponder the question for a minute to find an appropriate answer as if he didn't have a proper name, before raising his massive longbow and saying through random gusts of wind making Percy have to roll away every couple of seconds, " I suppose if you are to recognize me you could call me a titan mercenary by the name **Lelantos. The Titian of air, unseen movement, and hunting skills**. Your capture to Gaea has such a high price it's irresistible."

 **A/N:** _Sorry to those who have waited to read this story I just have had trouble finding a way to put some ideas into words and haven't felt up for trying to do so for a couple days. Anyways I would like to know how you guys feel about Percy's arc and time in_ **Tartarus** _so far, like has it been too long? I've just been trying to portray Tartarus as difficult as I thought it would be to traverse._

 _On a side note if you wanted to see what Percy's new jerkin (Basically shirt), Vambrace, and sword would look like or where I got the inspiration from, google "Talon jerkin", for his vambrace I got inspiration from "Leather armor full arm" in which I took away the top armored shoulder pad part, and for his his new sword just look up "William by peterku" and its almost completely the same minus one part. That's it for this chapter hope you enjoyed!_


	5. A Titan's Power!

"Lelantos..." Percy muttered. "Yeahhhhh no. Was that name supposed to mean somethin-?!" He didn't get to finish his question as he sensed several things coming at him through his 'vision' and was forced dodge three random gusts of wind and two arrows all at once. In an impressive show of athleticism and skill, he managed to backflip over the first push of air going almost as fast as a bullet while managing to dodge the first arrow in mid-air however he still received a cut on his right cheek under his eye. He got no reprieve because as soon as he hit the floor he had to put up Riptide to deflect the second arrow and was forced to roll to his left to avoid the blast of air coming from his right. Standing up Percy looked up towards where Lelantos was previously only to curse himself when he saw the titan was gone. "Right... titan of the unseen and all that," he muttered tiredly. Suddenly his eyes went wide and he turned around remembering there had been a third blast of air only to hear that annoying voice whispering, "You lose." Blasted backwards by the force of the wind he ended up at the edge of the crater where Lelantos was previously now wearing cuts across his arms and face.

Groaning Percy stood up and stared at the vambrace he took from Perses and noticed it was now vibrating with power urging him to use it again. As his right hand automatically went up to hit the ground and cause a huge earthquake, Percy had to physically restrain his right arm with his left hand or risk losing himself in the Titanic power of destruction all over again. After Percy was sure the vambrace's effect was gone he spread his senses as far as he could and was surprised to 'see' that most of the air for several miles outwards in all directions was being directed in front of a figure exactly on his blind spot a mile away. He tried turning his head to physically see Lelantos, but the figure never was there so he focused on his 'vision' and barely noticed that while Lelantos was still in the same place yet he was a part of the air and invisible to the normal eye. Showing he wasn't an idiot, Percy turned around so Lelantos was now at his blind spot and pretended to look around for him when really all his focus was directed at Lelantos through his 'vision'.

Percy was so focused on Lelantos he didn't notice the two blast of air sent from opposite directions meaning to crush him in between until it was too late. A gasp escaped his lips as he was smashed into by the air blasts and collapsed to his knees, ironically out of breath. The itch to use the vambrace returned twice as hard only this time Percy gathered energy from it and stood up having to use Riptide as a cane with his left hand. When another gust of wind mixed with an arrow came straight to his head, Percy's fist began to glow a faint purple and he punched the arrow out of instinct. Mouth agape Percy stared at his fist then grinned. "When used in controlled proportions destruction is pure power," he said without knowing why. Percy summoned water from the air and made it swirl around him to prevent any of the air blasts to get him off guard again. Just as he was about to stretch his 'vision' again, Percy felt arrows rain down from the sky by the dozens towards him. Acting quickly he willed the water to cover himself in a half dome, but soon realized the arrows were each being guided by the annoying gusts of wind. He knew that even with his form of solidified water wasn't going to be enough to stop it. As he was focused on the dome he got the same gut instinct when something big was going to happen. Following the instinct, he closed his hands which were normally open when controlling water and was pleasantly surprised to see that small portions of it were being turned to ice.

Smiling, Percy hastily created more water to add a second layer to his water and partial ice dome. Just as Lelantos barrage of air blasts and arrows were about to hit all of his summoned water froze into a different type of his ice than his own, a more durable type. As everything Lelantos sent collided with the impromptu shield, there was a powerful blast as air blasts created by a titan collided into ice sending Percy skidding backwards. Looking up, he saw that all the ice was melting into water already. Then in the corner of his eyes, he could see a figure wearing a light blue cloak on one knee. He turned and saw Khione with her hands outstretched panting and sweating with effort then she mouthed to him a simple phrase, "Kill him," before falling back to the ground. Percy saluted to Khione and began sprinting towards Lelantos who seemed too surprised to turn back into his domain form and hide as wind. As he was running, Percy had to create water at least four times to block the continuous blasts of air which seemed to be getting stronger and stronger all the while deflecting arrows every couple of seconds with Riptide.

Suddenly Percy stopped and put his hands in a 'T' sign and shouted, "Hey!" he paused to make sure he had the hunters attention. Percy had his attention alright, Percy found that out when he felt an arrow dig into his left forearm that was covering his heart as well as getting blasted back 20 feet by another force of the wind. "I can't be asked," Percy muttered as he dodged another wind blast deeply cutting his already bleeding right cheek. The power and urge to use his vambrace intensified with his wounds, so Percy in another one of his moments, decided that if that was the case he was about to use it to his advantage. When the next air blast came Percy dug his feet to the ground and allowed himself to get injured but not sent back. He felt another blast air coming from behind him and he could have dodged but decided not to when the vambrace began glowing with power. Percy knew he would need the power from it if he was going to be able to pull off his next stunt.

Lelantos, throughout the whole exchange, had remained silent fully expecting the demigod to collapse from exhaustion and his injuries. The air he sent towards Percy was sent so to wear down opponents or to immobilize them through the pressure it created, so imagine his surprise when Percy took not just his first blast, but the next two simultaneous ones which would have killed a mortal and broken most demigods. Then the demigod proceded to punch his next arrow and air combination using a vaguely familiar vambrace going down to his knuckles. Now Lelantos was just forced to keep sending arrows or air blasts unless he wanted the demigod to catch him up close. Earlier in the fight when Lelantos had sent his titanic powered barrage of arrows and powerful blasts and failed, he realized he needed to incapacitate Percy with one move, so he had begun using all his given titanic power making all the air blasts at least twice as powerful and fast.

However, instead of sending nonstop wind blasts, he decided to focus most of his power into building up one major one that he had used to capture minor gods within the past. While firing his arrows from his Adamantium bow and forcing random gusts of wind to launch towards the son of Poseidon, his focus was primarily on building up his one main blast. "Haven't had to put this much effort into capturing someone since putting Pan into the Labyrinth," he thought drily. Lelantos almost lost his concentration when Percy took two of his full strength blasts head without moving backwards. He could have sworn he saw Percy's vambrace glow brighter after each hit the demigod took. His jaw would have dropped if he hadn't already guessed it when the vambrace extended downwards to under his knuckles and upwards attaching three chain strap onto a new pauldron that reminded him of Perses flashy full arm armour, except this new armour actually served its purpose by protecting the shoulder and bicep perfectly. The armour began glowing purple and soon Percy's eyes began getting a bloodthirsty look accompanied by a feral grin.

Percy shook his head trying to get rid of his chaotic and self-destructive thoughts as he struggled for control over The Destruction Gauntlet. The bloodthirsty look left his eyes but the feral grin was still present making him look slightly crazed. Again he felt several objects coming from different directions, however, this time they were smaller and not going with the same amount of force or speed making him realize that Lelantos had used the throwings knifes. "Might as well," Percy thought. Then he brought his fist up ready to unleash all his accumulated powers over destruction and focused his thoughts solely on Lelantos. Controlling his thoughts against the natural power of destruction turned out to be just as difficult as it was to focus in the River Styx. Opening his eyes he didn't realize he closed, he brought down his fist with a primal yell of rage he didn't truly feel.

The effect of hitting the ground using Perse's domain was terrifyingly immediate with a boom louder than Perses last explosion. First, it created an indent in the floor around his feet resembling an uneven crater with no relation whatsoever going from 4 feet behind him to 40 feet to his left as well as a solid 6 feet into the floor making all the throwing knives fly overhead. As Percy ran out of the crater-like indent, he saw the floor was so destroyed it made jagged spikes with the sharded floor stick out up to 12 feet off the ground randomly with just enough space for Percy to squeeze through. The ground pillars went on for a couple of miles in the direction of Lelantos who was forced to take his wind form in order to get out of the way of the ground spikes. Percy casually climbed the nearest spiked pillar and began jumping from one pillar to the next using the fact that nothing was being sent towards him just yet. Percy cursed about jinxing it and trying his luck when he felt several air blasts coming towards him. He was forced to jump off the pillar he was on and put his back to it waiting for the blast to hit. He expected the blast to hit the pillar and maybe weaken it, however, he was not expecting for the first blast to smash into it and break half of it then the second one to break it entirely followed by a third one smashing him back against another pillar.

Groaning, Percy idly thought, "Two blasts of air to break **Tartarus'** ground...nice." He quickly stood up 'seeing' an arrow coming from above. Acting on instinct yet again, he upercutted the air breaking the arrow mid-air only for a throwing knife to dig into his left bicep. He loudly cursed Lelantos knowing that the titan would hear him. Percy swore he could hear his taunting laugh being carried by the wind made it sound more like a hiss. Wincing as he removed the throwing knife from his shoulder he also decided that his 'vision' demanded his full attention when dealing with such a sneaky opponent. He willed water running deep underground to force its way upwards through the cracks in the ground and wasn't surprised when the Phlethegon's flaming water appeared around him. He allowed the flames to lick at his wounded arm and stop blood from leaking yet it didn't appear to be enough to fully heal it. Then in a massive display of power and control over his element, Percy thrust his hands out creating water all along the broken ground making it even harder for himself to get hit.

Percy realized that he needed to end this soon or his will over the water would soon dissipate and so to would the power he was getting from it leave. Using the water to boost him along, he sprinted/swam at unparalleled speeds weaving through the gaps in the pillars all the same while focusing his energy on keeping the water up around the miles of the broken ground as well as keeping his 'vision on Lelantos' figure. Percy could vaguely feel a barrage of dozens of air blasts mixed with arrows rain down from the sky overhead making him grit his teeth and pour more power into keeping his water barriers up. In a matter of mere moments, Percy was more than halfway to reaching the titan. As he continued, asides from hearing occasional curses from the passing wind blasts, he felt several objects fly through the water at surprising speeds. They were once again Lelantos throwing knives. "How much knives does this dude carry for Hades' sake," Percy grunted out.

Unbeknown to himself, Percy had a small ring around him purely out of the Phlegethon's water. He thought he was seeing things when he saw flashes of orange flash by, but when he felt the familiar warmth and strength hit him he realised what it was. As his adrenaline continued to build the orange flames began to glow green before they actually transformed green. Seeing this, Percy thought he was surrounded by greek fire so in a moment of panic he accidentally transformed all the natural looking water between the fire and himself completely into ice. He let out a sigh of relief only to nearly choke as the Greek Fire melted the through the ice and wrapped around his arm covering his wound. Surprisingly the only thing he felt was a slight burning feeling on his already wounded arm. Soon the flames went back to circling Percy leaving him confused as to why he was standing fine.

As he looked down he saw that the only thing left of his knife wound was a faint scar. "Now isn't the time to fuck with me Phlegethon..." Percy muttered. Focusing his senses yet again on Lelantos, Percy smirked seeing the titan just staring at him in what he could only guess was a shock. After all, it's not every day you see a son of Poseidon covered in Greek Fire and come out better than before. In an attempt to gain ground without having to deal with the annoying constant attacks, however, he underestimated the titan. Seeing Percy continue to move snapped Lelantos out of his surprise and sent the last three of his throwing knives to hit him on three opposing sides.

Percy was so focused on purely going as fast as he could he almost forgot about Lelantos' attacks and was only able to dodge the first two knives that would have hit his arms from the front out of instinct. He wasn't fast enough to fully dodge the one coming from behind. Twisting his body using water to aid him, he spun mid jump making the knives graze past him yet not seeing the one from behind until it stabbed into his left forearm. "Son of a _bitch_! Why the left arm _again?!_ " Percy shouted as pain flared through his arm. Percy focused on summoning more of the Phlegethon to heal himself and ignored the fact that it had again turned into Greek Fire as he sent a glare towards Lelantos. Whether from imagination or from the wind, he swore he could _hear_ the smirk on the titans face.

Percy winced when the Greek Fire burned through the knife lodged in his left shoulder. Instead of going full speed again he let himself take it slow all the same while sending walls of water crashing into the barrage of air blasts. Finally, after what felt like hours of running through water on pillars and blasting water outwards, he was 20 feet away from a panting Lelantos. "You know this 'fight' so far has been extremely bothersome," Percy said with barely contained frustration. Instead of responding with words Lelantos raised his bow and in rapid succession fired arrow after arrow. Realistically, so many point blank arrows being fired should have worried Percy, but he was content about not having to deal with the annoying blasts for the moment.

Using his still wounded left forearm to feed more power to his Gauntlet of Destruction, he punched straight through the first arrow then using Riptide in his left hand he slashed the next two arrows in half before being forced to deflect the last arrow. The force and power of the arrow alone sent vibrations throughout his entire left arm making him force down a scream of pain. For a moment afterwards, Percy let too much of the Gauntlet of Destruction's aura get to him as his face went from contorted in pain to a ferocious animalistic grin and his eyes going so dark they were on the edge of being completely black.

Despite the influx of uncontrolled anger coming from Perses ingrained natural destructive aura, Percy managed to redirect it from himself to Lelantos direction. However, instead of it going into his earthshaker abilities and fist it went into Riptide. Instinctively, he slashed with Riptide diagonally. Percy was surprised to visibly see Lelantons tense up and send more air blasts only for them to be ignored. The slash with Riptide created a line of energy rapidly approach Lelantos going through the air blasts before hitting the titan of air and unseen.

As Lelantos was hit with the destructive energy blast he realized that it wasn't a simple demigod's weapon he was being hit by, but another titans weapon. The realization was too late, however, as he was already hit and bleeding from where he was hit. Percy, still feeling the effects of the destructive aura, growled as he was caught off guard and hit with several weak gusts of wind by the titan. The weak winds only served to leave small cuts on his sides that were eerily similar to claw marks. Percy assumed that the point of the cuts was to get him out of breath and make him more unfocused. Smirking Percy let his wounds fuel the Gauntlet of Destruction's power then redirecting it to his right fist. Feeling the unstable power spreading from his fist to his forearm and seeing Lelantos rise from the ground Percy had no second thoughts about punching the air, and in turn, releasing all the power onto Lelantos.

Before Lelantos could properly get his footing, he was hit by another blast of uncontrolled power directly on the head another on his chest. The difference between the first slice of energy and the next two was easily the fact the first one could _almost_ be considered as a controlled power with it actually cutting into the titan's skin while the next two were just like a sledgehammer of power smacking against Lelantos body sending him into a pained daze. Percy summoned Phlethegon water from under his feet to heal the gashes on his side that were beginning to bleed so much he was getting slightly dizzy. He didn't want to let his first offensive slip from his grasp so he sprinted towards the sprawled out Titan. With an almost animalistic war cry, Percy jumped and with an overhead slash, he attempted to behead Lelantos to end their battle. However, even though slightly dazed from the destructive energy blasts, Lelantos was able to move with the wind (presumably due to his domain) and raised his bow above him to block the incoming attack. As Percy's Celestial Bronze blade met the Adamantium staff of Lelantos' bow, there was an audible boom violently shaking the ground for miles forcing both the demigod and titan to fly through the floor in opposite directions leaving trails in the sharded floor where they went.

It took several long moments for Percy to stir from where he landed and he quickly realized Riptide wasn't in his hands as it must have fallen somewhere during his stumble. Quickly he reached into his pocket and sighed in relief and smiled when he felt the familiar pen then proceeded to uncap it, revealing Riptide in all its glory. His smile was soon melted off when he saw that things weren't as perfect as they seemed with his favourite sword. "Impossible..," Percy murmured gazing at a crack down the middle of the blade where Riptide had hit Lelantos' bow. Deciding on not to test his luck with Riptide in case it broke, he hastily capped it and unsheathed Perses sword from his back. Looking intently at the new sword he was expecting it to have the same effect as his Gauntlet of Destruction but was pleasantly surprised when no sudden crazed feeling possessed him. A small flash on his sword drew his attention to wear something was being burned into the flat end. He saw that it was the name of his new sword. " _Razed_ ," Percy read out loud, "how fitting." With all of Percy's attention going to his sword he almost forgot about the fact that there was still a titan to be dealt with.

Percy didn't know that Lelantos had long since been able to fight. Lelantos knew from millennia of experience that he would be expected to have been defeated so he just laid in the same position he landed while putting all his focus on finishing his last effort attack. The attack Lelantos was planning on using was risky because it could end up killing its target instead of incapacitating them, that's why Lelantos spent centuries trying to perfect his attack according to his target. For a short period of time it made him miss on a good amount of bounty, but in the long term, it was the reason he was able to finish certain jobs he wasn't able to in the past. Now here he was, forced to use the attack only the more powerful of minor gods and above could survive on a mere demigod. He almost growled out in frustration at how low it was for a titan to be pushed so far by a mortal. He forced himself to remain still or "play dead" several minutes when Percy began to stir. After several moments of confusion, Lelantos felt the son of Poseidon approach his body with caution holding out a sword made out of Adamantium, a metal only used by titans ever since the fall of Mount Orthys.

That's when things fully clicked in Lelanthos' mind. He originally thought that the demigod having Perses' Gauntlet of destruction was a fluke, but Percy also wielding a titans weapon of choice was far to much evidence that the demigod made Perses fade, as it was the only way for one to fully utilize an immortals weapon. Absentmindedly he began to rise out of sheer anger forgetting all about Gaea's orders about capturing the demigod. Lelantos wasn't the emotional type by any means, but after so many of his kind have been prosecuted for no reason other than they can be he was livid to find out that another was slain by a mere godling. Suddenly, he began laughing uncontrollably using his real voice for the first time in years. His voice was horrific with its dry and raspy sound resembling an animal attempting to talk but it just sounded totally off.

Percy was frozen in place by morbid curiosity as to what had suddenly gotten into Lelantos. The fact that the titan's voice sounded like some type of possessed animal didn't help at all either. Percy contemplated killing the maniacally laughing titan but a small part of him felt wrong about killing a person who wouldn't fight back, even if it was a titan he was just fighting. However, before he could make a decision dozens of gusts of wind flew all around him like the winds from an untamed hurricane, forcing open all of his wounds and adding new ones. Several minutes later, Percy was beginning to fatigue when he heard Lelantos speak with his real horrid voice saying, " **This is for all of my kind that has fallen by your godling hands!** " Acting out of desperation Percy summoned all the water from the air and from the Phlegethon flowing underneath to surround himself in it as a barrier against the now hundreds of blasts of wind cut into his skin.

Lelantos watched in sickening satisfaction as all his built up power was finally unleashed, slowly a predatory smile formed on his face despite the fact that his entire face was hidden under the cowl of his cloak. He continued to laugh as the demigod began to scream out in pain when his wind blasts began to target ligaments, joints in the body, or just the most painful places to be wounded. There were so many wind currents circling Percy in his dome of water that soon vision became impossible. Added to the winds cutting into Percy's skin the wind also began to pick up shards of the floor making every little cut even more painful. Lelantos, knowing from experience what would happen when so much of his power over the air was concentrated on one position, began to stumble away from the pained demigod.

As Percy continued to get sliced up he fell onto one knee attempting to ignore the pain and summon as much water as he possibly could while Greek Fire from the Phlethegon attempted to heal his wounds but was to slow to keep up with the nonstop air blasts. Eventually, he couldn't scream anymore so he just stood on one knee with an open mouth forming a silent scream. Through all of the pain across his body, he could faintly feel his entire right arm begin to burn up with power in response to all the pain to the point it transformed into Greek Fire and simultaneously spreading all across his body mostly counteracting the pain from the air blasts, which felt more like air hitting him with the painful precision of a blade. Finally, Percy could think thanks to the strange healing property coming from the Greek Fire.

Percy took several deep breathes before looking around only to see that he still had a ten feet dome of water coated with the Phlethegon, however, every couple of seconds holes would appear in his dome cutting through all the water until it hit him. Then instead of the dome closing up, the hole would slowly get bigger and more and more wind 'blades' would pour in to try to shred him to pieces. Percy realized that his dome would be dissipating very soon so he began to focus all the Divine energy coming from his Gauntlet into his right fist entirely. Excruciatingly slowly the Greek Fire began to fade away while his fist glowed a dark purple hue. When the Greek Fire left his body he began to feel the 'air blades' cut deeply into his skin all across his body again but this time he managed to take the pain and still stay in focus. "C'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon!" Percy muttered as he saw his water dome slowly fade away and the 'wind blades' approach him.

The burning feeling on his arm had now completely faded away and burned hotter than Percy had ever felt on his knuckles. He wasn't sure if he was seeing things when the wind began to get even more frantic and less controlled seemingly attacking itself. From inside the remains of his dome, Percy felt like he was in the eye of a tornado with a huge bomb being dropped from overhead himself. The horrifying part for Percy was the fact that the air walls of the tornado were visible to the naked eye showing it was getting a physical form, then to make matters worse above the walls the remaining currents of air began to accumulate into miniature speeding tornadoes _inside_ the walls of the tornado. Percy was no science guy, but when it came to divine power it was something he could understand. It was simple in his mind, a large amount of divine power will eventually end in it exploding just like Perses realising all his divine destructive energy. Last time he was faced with a divine induced explosion he chose to protect himself from it. Now it didn't seem like he could because he already saw the 'air blades' cut through his water dome with no problem whatsoever beforehand. Percy let out a humourless chuckle muttering, "Titans and their explosions... I guess it's only fair if I were to make one myself. My turn Lelantos." He added the last part knowing that the titan would hear it before looking up to see the 'wind bomb'.

Taking a deep breath, Percy willed the water to make him rise up to meet the 'wind bomb' half way. As he approached the center part of it he reared his fist back and with all his physical strength combined with the divine abilities he had he punched towards it so hard and fast he left an afterimage of his arm. For an embarrassing moment, nothing happened. Just as Percy was about to go in search of Lelantos again when as if very delayed he heard what he thought was the sound barrier being broken. Wide-eyed Percy looked at the spot he had punched and saw a large ball of condensed power slowly shrink into nothingness. Before Percy even had the chance to blink or fully create a dome of water to protect himself, he was hit with the heat of the divine power. The heat alone was enough to make him lightheaded and stagger backwards, then the explosion hit him making everything turn gold blinding him. That was the moment **Tartarus** was hit with its biggest explosion yet, with it shacking the entire pit so violently everything and everyone was knocked off their feet. However, the most impressive thing from the explosion was the huge mushroom cloud that went so high up it reached the top of the cavern, then it expanded outwards going at least 3 miles in every direction. Primal fear ran throughout all monsters, mortals, and immortals alike in the pit, even the ones who were 'working' under Gaea assumed that the Primordial God of the pit was unleashing his power to punish them.

Lelantos stood on a small ridge several miles away watching the after-effects of the Divine Bomb in shocked awe of not only the limits to his powers but also to the fact that the son of Poseidon created his own Divine explosion. He stood there for several moments smirking victoriously as all the dust and shards of the glassy floor settled down until realization hit him. He had just killed the person he was supposed to capture. "No.. no no no no no **NO!** " he shouted, while out of anger he punched the glass floor making his fists bleed Ichor. He began pacing back and forth ignoring the burning feeling of his hand bleeding. Lelantos thought of how this would have been the first time he had failed in completing his mission since centuries ago, if not millennia. Growling, well more like snarling in a wolf-like way, he contemplated his options. He could return to Gaea with nothing but news of his failure. He could attempt to hide away, but running from a Primordial would never work. He could...he could shift the blame to the demigod and make it seem like Percy had let himself die rather than be captured. Changing gears quicker than most immortals could, Lelantos began to make plans on how he would do as such. He would first need proof that the Demigod was dead, that matter was simple all he would need was his weapon.

A sudden major difference in the air alerted Lelantos that the dust had cleared up. He began walking towards the center of where the explosion occurred, mildly surprised that there wasn't any change in the terrain other than the scattered shards, in hopes of finding anything of the demigod intact. The titan froze in place and his face lost all colour upon realizing that a lone figure was shakily standing behind all of the dust. Several seconds passed before Lelantos snapped and suddenly the winds picked up so much making the currents visible to anyone. Using to winds to magnify his voice for any to hear for miles he hissed out, " _That was more than enough power to kill a god! How are you possibly alive?! Just_ **what** _a_ _re you?"_ With every word said an air blast was sent towards Percy who just took it without even flinching. "Unfortunately for you, I'm pissed off." Percy's voice was so quite Lelantos only heard it because of air being his domain, the dangerous tone which he spoke in gave Lelantos the chills. Percy began to slowly walk towards Lelantos who was desperately launching air blast after air blast only for Phlethegon Fire to shoot out from the floor blocking every attack. With every step, the floor where he previously was began to crack and was covered with a thin layer of ice. The ice was so minuscule in proportion it took Lelantos' trained eye to see it.

In an act of panic, Lelantos pulled out his last triumph card desperate to kill the demon like-demigod in front of him. He raised his left arm then touched a small symbol on the inside of his vambrace. Instantly two Adamantium rods stuck out in a 'V' shape with the point directed at Percy who was sporting a smirk despite his entire left side being mostly covered in blood. As Percy approached the titan of air, he saw the titan grab something from his boot that looked like a small arrow with what he assumed to be poison dripping from the arrowhead then put it into a bow like-attachment on the inside of his vambrace. The closer he got to Lelantos' position the more 'air blasts' that tried to smash into him, soon his field of vision was ironically clouded by flames appearing from the floor only to be instantly hit down by the wind. Realizing that his normal sight wouldn't be working, he focused on his more recent 'vision' only to feel it a lot more difficult to do than before, presumably because of his weaker state. He surprised to 'see' Lelantos using his right hand to direct all wind blasts instead of just willing them to do so, then he noticed Lelantos had his left hand extended as if holding a bow.

Just as Percy finished taking note of the final thing, he was hit by something from the back. Percy had been so focused on Lelantos he failed to notice the Phlethegon was now only protecting him from the stronger wind blasts and not the weaker ones. Using Percy's slight distraction Lelantos decided he needed to take his shot or he might not get another, so he poured all his power over the unseen into the arrow and let fly. Only years of experience of listening to his demigod senses which told him something was off allowed Percy to lean to his right in an attempt to dodge the arrow. However, the power of Lelantos' vambrace bow wasn't a laughing matter as even Percy's speed wasn't enough to dodge or deflect the small arrow. Percy let out a cry of pain as he was hit by the undetectable arrow on his left bicep, by the second he could feel himself begin to weaken making him realize he had already experienced the same type of poisoning before. "Damn pit scorpion poison," he muttered earning a gleeful laugh from the air surrounding him. His sight was beginning to turn black for the son of Poseidon and he wondered if this was really his end.

When he was about to finally pass out he heard Khione's voice enter his head before weakly muttering, "You gave me your word Perseus. Don't break it. Now **GET UP AND** **FIGHT BACK,** " he felt Khione pass out shortly afterwards. Seconds later, pain flared through his left arm making him realize that he had lost any feeling through his entire body without even noticing. Then he opened his eyes and saw Lelantos screaming bloody murder while holding his left hand that looked extremely burnt. Another voice then appeared in his head saying, "It would appear bad if my first chosen one were to die so soon. My help ends here so the rest is up to you Perseus." Percy frowned at hearing the long version of his name he didn't like but muttered a quick 'thank you' to the Phlethegon goddess. Now standing on his feet he realized that Lady Phlethegon must have summoned a small pool worth of the Phlethegon fire to heal him and harm Lelantos. Feeling an unfamiliar tug in his gut, he pulled it and a second later he was engulfed in Greek Fire making the poison in his body begin to burn away as well as heal some of the more damaged parts of his body.

Percy was about to pull out Riptide but soon recalled that it was damaged so he instead unsheathed his new sword, _Razed,_ that was strapped onto his back. Using the remaining pain he allowed it to fuel his Gauntlet before making it go to his sword and watched in awe as the sword's edges were outlined in a thin layer Greek Fire. Not wasting any more time he sprinted full speed at Lelantos who was currently staring him with an unidentifiable emotion under his hood. The titan fired another arrow from his small vambrace bow only for Percy to slash it in half with his sword. Lelantos tried taking a couple step back before firing another arrow. The arrow was again cut in half and now Percy was within striking distance so Lelantos was forced to take out his least favourite weapon, his dagger. Percy used both hands and swung a horizontal slash expecting the titan to block the attack, well he was partially right. Lelantos sloppily raised his dagger with two hands as if it were sword showing his lack of skill with the weapon. Percy didn't expect for _Razed_ to have cut through both the dagger and the hands holding it so he stumbled to the side unceremoniously landing on his elbow.

Percy twisted to his left in case an attack followed him before he got up with the speed of a panther and looked over to the titan. Percy was horrified at the effects of what a single swing could do. On the floor lay a dagger cut straight in two, next two it was several severed fingers. Lelantos' hands were slowly being consumed by green flames and it took several moments for Percy to realize it was the Greek Fire from Razed's blade. Unconsciously his right arm began clenching and unclenching around Razed as if enjoyed what happened. The thought almost made Percy sick. He looked down and suddenly he was invaded by unfamiliar emotions that didn't belong to himself. The feeling of blind rage, empathy, and the dark and crazed desire to just kill anything followed by pure pain was what he felt making him realize it was coming from Lelantos. Everything he felt from Lelantos only lasted for a split second. Shaking his head he wondered if all those feelings were related to insanity. It would certainly explain why the titan would act and react so strangely to such small things.

Percy walked back to the screaming titan who was now missing both arms as they were consumed by the Greek Fire. Taking pity on the titan he decided it would be best to just make his death quicker than Greek fire. Lifting Razed from a resting position he prepared to impale the titan. He hesitated for a moment remembering he had killed the defenceless remains of a mortal. However, a shriek of unadulterated pain made him realize that leaving Lelantos to die by Greek Fire was morally worse. Closing his eyes, he turned away before pushing Razed into the titan's heart. The only noise from the titan now was a small almost inaudible sigh of relief before he began turning a bright gold then fading into air. The titan was rapidly changing from nothing, with each time the golden being brighter and brighter. It got so bright that even with his eyes closed and facing a different direction Percy felt like he would go blind from the light when it just suddenly stopped. Percy let his 'vision' expand to see where Lelantos was instead of his normal sight out of fear of being blinded. In Lelantos' place, a small indent was the only physical indication that anyone had ever been there.

Percy sighed feeling relieved that he didn't have to worry about random air blasts and arrows hitting him. He allowed himself several moments of relief and peace before cursing the fates and muttering about his nearly terribly injured left arm. After what felt like hours of resting but was in reality only fifteen minutes sitting down, Percy stood and took one last look at Lelantos' indent. However, instead of seeing nothing in there like he had through his 'vision' he saw several items piled underneath a strange cloak and backpack. Not even fazed by the fact that he hadn't been able to see anything before, he opened the backpack and stuffed everything he could in there. The only thing he couldn't fit in it was a sheath carrying eight throwing knives that he promptly strapped around his left leg and a full bottle of water. Though he poured that over himself, mainly his left arm. Percy would have left the empty bottle of water but he felt it slowly regain water. "Gotta get me more of these enchanted bad boys," he thought to himself.

Finally, Percy forced his vision as far as he could towards where he had last left Khione. After looking around for almost ten minutes straight, he gave up on solely looking for the goddess and instead began searching for the crater in which he had slain Perses. Not even a minute later and he found it right at the limit of how far he could 'see'. Then blinking his eyes several times to get used seeing through normal eyes again, he turned in the direction of Khione's last location while adjusting the backpack to fit in a more comfortable position for sprinting at high speeds. However, the moment when his focus went away from the backpack he looked up and noticed the ground split in half creating tall pillars of the ground every couple of feet. Leading straight to the freaking crater he was headed to. Loudly groaning at the humanity of it all, Percy facepalmed wanting to smack himself for being so forgetful and dumb. Having had wasted enough time he began sprinting towards the crater while at the same time he was using his 'vision' to desperately look for the goddess. He sighed in relief when he finally saw her body lay untouched. However, the further he went he began to sense dozens of monsters in the way to get to her. Then he noticed that coming from the opposite direction where he was coming from was a group of six wild centaurs and fourteen earthborn approaching the crater, no doubt Gaea's forces looking for him or the 'traitor goddess'. Biting back a groan, Percy could only think, "I need a raise for the shit the fates put me through."

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 **A/N:** _Sooooo it's been a while. The reason this chapter took so long was that last week when Fanfiction wasn't working it deleted the 2k words I already had and so I just didn't feel like writing for a while. In case you are wondering the vambrace bow, Lelantos used indeed was the phantom blade bow part from Assassins Creed._

 _Now onto a question I've really been wanting to ask is what pairings would you guys like for this story, (Spoilers this isn't a Percabeth story)_

 _It can be anyone you like, but these are the ones I'm leaning the most to._

 **Artemis. (The most complicated to do without going into the whole Guardian of the hunt cliche type of story).**

 **Zoe.** **(I would need a way to realistically bring her back to life).**

 **Bianca. (I would need a way to realistically bring her back to life).**

 **Or my favourite ones at the moment:**

 **Khione. (Potentially to predictable).**

 **Reyna (Most realistic).**


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